2008 Woodie Awards
Short circut in nursing home causes fire, leaves 30 dead
Associated Press
Issue date: 11/6/07 Section: News
MOSCOW (AP) - Fire tore through a nursing home in Russia, trapping patients in fast-moving flames and choking smoke at a facility cited for numerous safety violations including no fire alarm, officials said Monday. At least 30 people were killed.
Horrific fires at state-run facilities have underscored the negligence, mismanagement, corruption and crumbling infrastructure that persist despite an oil-fueled upswing in Russia's fortunes under President Vladimir Putin. Nearly 18,000 people are killed in fires in Russia each year, several times the per capita rate in the United States and other Western countries.
The fire broke out early Sunday afternoon in the two-story home for the elderly and invalids in the Tula region south of Moscow. It spread quickly through the 55-year-old brick building, where the wooden interior walls burned fast, Emergency Situations Ministry spokesman Viktor Beltsov said.
More than 250 people escaped or were evacuated, officials said. Some jumped from windows, and a nurse described frantic efforts to save bedridden patients, though emergency officials blamed personnel for the high death toll.
A short circuit apparently caused the fire, officials said. Survivors said a ceiling lamp on the second floor started smoking and fell to the floor, which caught fire, the state-run RIA-Novosti news agency quoted Russia's top fire safety official, Yuri Nenashev, as saying.
"When the room filled with smoke, black carbon monoxide fumes, I knew I wouldn't have time to tie sheets together and decided to just jump out the window," survivor Mikhail Zhuravlyov, 45, told NTV television, lying in a hospital bed with a cast on his leg. "I jumped, and lost consciousness for a while."
Beltsov said employees "did not organize the effective evacuation" of residents.
Nenashev also faulted personnel for beginning evacuation efforts on the first floor rather than the second floor, where the fire started, RIA-Novosti reported.
Valentina Chernikova, a nurse, said employees did their best to evacuate patients, some of whom suffered from nervous system disorders. Many were bedridden, she said." They had to be carried out on stretchers, on gurneys, pushed through windows. I think we did this very quickly," Chernikova said on state-run Vesti-24 television.
She said employees had tossed mattresses and blankets in the snow outside and hurriedly placed the patients on them.
Firefighters were alerted half an hour after the fire broke out, and arrived five minutes later to find that the blaze had already spread over 10,000 square feet, said Beltsov, who gave the death toll.
Horrific fires at state-run facilities have underscored the negligence, mismanagement, corruption and crumbling infrastructure that persist despite an oil-fueled upswing in Russia's fortunes under President Vladimir Putin. Nearly 18,000 people are killed in fires in Russia each year, several times the per capita rate in the United States and other Western countries.
The fire broke out early Sunday afternoon in the two-story home for the elderly and invalids in the Tula region south of Moscow. It spread quickly through the 55-year-old brick building, where the wooden interior walls burned fast, Emergency Situations Ministry spokesman Viktor Beltsov said.
More than 250 people escaped or were evacuated, officials said. Some jumped from windows, and a nurse described frantic efforts to save bedridden patients, though emergency officials blamed personnel for the high death toll.
A short circuit apparently caused the fire, officials said. Survivors said a ceiling lamp on the second floor started smoking and fell to the floor, which caught fire, the state-run RIA-Novosti news agency quoted Russia's top fire safety official, Yuri Nenashev, as saying.
"When the room filled with smoke, black carbon monoxide fumes, I knew I wouldn't have time to tie sheets together and decided to just jump out the window," survivor Mikhail Zhuravlyov, 45, told NTV television, lying in a hospital bed with a cast on his leg. "I jumped, and lost consciousness for a while."
Beltsov said employees "did not organize the effective evacuation" of residents.
Nenashev also faulted personnel for beginning evacuation efforts on the first floor rather than the second floor, where the fire started, RIA-Novosti reported.
Valentina Chernikova, a nurse, said employees did their best to evacuate patients, some of whom suffered from nervous system disorders. Many were bedridden, she said." They had to be carried out on stretchers, on gurneys, pushed through windows. I think we did this very quickly," Chernikova said on state-run Vesti-24 television.
She said employees had tossed mattresses and blankets in the snow outside and hurriedly placed the patients on them.
Firefighters were alerted half an hour after the fire broke out, and arrived five minutes later to find that the blaze had already spread over 10,000 square feet, said Beltsov, who gave the death toll.
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