Eight killed in apartment fire in Russia’s Ural region

MOSCOW: Eight people were killed, including a 7-year-old child, after a fire broke out in an apartment block in the Russian metropolis of Yekaterinburg in the early hours of Tuesday. Nine others were injured after the fire ravaged three apartments in a nine-storey building, Russian authorities said. “Unfortunately, the tragedy occurred because of the improper handling of fire in one of the apartments,” said interim mayor Alexei Orlov. Serious fires with dead and injured occur time and again in Russia because of violations of elementary safety regulations. Just last week, seven elderly people died in a fire in a retirement home in the western Siberian village of Borovsky in the Tyumen region. Ninety residents of the block were temporarily evacuated by the civil defence force. The region is currently experiencing extreme low temperatures of around minus 20 degrees Celsius.
Pictures published online showed smoke-blackened stairwells. A mother and her 7-year-old daughter were among those killed, local media reported.