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4 Dead and Dozens Missing in Russia Building Collapse | |
(about 7 hours later) | |
MOSCOW — At least four people died and dozens were missing on Monday after an early-morning explosion, possibly started by a gas leak, caused part of a 10-story residential apartment building to collapse in the central Russian city of Magnitogorsk, local news agencies reported. | |
Cries for help could be heard from the rubble, news reports said, with hundreds of rescue workers scrambling to find survivors. Witnesses smelled gas in the area, and a leak was believed to be behind the explosion in the industrial city at the southern edge of the Ural Mountains, some 1,050 miles east of Moscow. | Cries for help could be heard from the rubble, news reports said, with hundreds of rescue workers scrambling to find survivors. Witnesses smelled gas in the area, and a leak was believed to be behind the explosion in the industrial city at the southern edge of the Ural Mountains, some 1,050 miles east of Moscow. |
The head of the Emergencies Ministry said as many as 40 people, including up to seven children, could still be trapped, and the authorities were racing to find remaining survivors because cold weather was complicating a relief effort that would be difficult even under normal circumstances. | |
The temperatures, already frigid during the day at 0 degrees (minus 18 degrees Celsius), were expected to drop to about minus 17 at night, leaving anyone trapped vulnerable to exposure. There were also concerns that other parts of the building might collapse, a spokesman for the Emergencies Ministry said. | |
The eruption occurred around 6 a.m. local time on Monday, a public holiday in Russia in advance of the New Year, when most of the residents were asleep in the building, which held 623 apartments. A total of 110 people lived in the 48 apartments that were damaged, the Emergencies Ministry said. | |
President Vladimir V. Putin traveled to the scene, where he observed the rescue effort and met the region’s governor before visiting some of the injured at a hospital. The authorities have started a criminal inquiry into whether the explosion was the result of negligence. |