Russia: At least 23 dead as fire breaks out at psychiatric hospital

Some 20 people were also injured in the blaze at the hospital, located in the village of Alferovka in Russia’s southern Voronezh region.

Nineteen dead bodies were recovered at the fire scene in the village of Alfyorovka, south of Moscow near the Ukrainian border, and two died in the hospital, RIA Novosti reported.

Share with Us – We’d love to hear eyewitness accounts, the history behind an article, and smart, constructive criticism. At least two dozen people were admitted to a local hospital with serious burn injuries.

Seventy patients, some of them bed-bound or disabled, and four staff were in part of the building hit by the blaze.

The fire gutted the brick-and-timber hospital building and it took more than 440 firefighters and emergency workers around three hours to bring the inferno under control.

“The mass death of socially vulnerable people occurs each time for the same reason: a lack of funding, dilapidated buildings and too few personnel, especially on night duty”, said Vladimir Markin, a spokesman for the federal investigative agency. “23 people were killed as a result of the emergency situation”.

Police have begun an investigation into the fire, which is being treated as a criminal act, and will look at whether negligence was a factor.

At least 23 people have been killed in a “fire at a psychiatric hospital”: https://www.rt.com/news/325752-russia-fire-neurological-hospital/ in central Russian Federation.

Eight people living in neighboring rooms were suffocated by smoke.In 2009, a fire accident at an old people’s home in the Republic of Komi in north-western Russian Federation, killed 23 people.