dan9999
12-05-2009, 02:07 PM
Russian Nightclub Explosion, Fire Kills 109
Saturday, December 05, 2009
AP
MOSCOW — Panicked clubgoers crushed each other to death in a popular Russian nightspot as they tried to flee a fast-moving fire that one eyewitness told The Associated Press was started by pyrotechnic fountains set up on the stage.
Officials said 109 people died when the fire tore through the popular Lame Horse nightclub in the city of Perm late Friday, filling the crowded barracks-like building with thick black smoke.
Authorities said they arrested the registered owner of the club and the manager.
Russia's Investigative Committee said Saturday that 98 died on the spot and 11 others later died in hospitals.
Some 130 people were injured and many remain in critical condition, the committee said.
Officials said most of the dead suffered smoke inhalation or were crushed at the exit.
"The fire spread very quickly," said Marina Zabbarova, chief investigator for the local prosecutor's office. "Panic arose which led to a mass death of people."
News footage shot later outside the Lame Horse showed charred bodies lying in rows on the ground amid a light snowfall. Rescue workers carried bodies on stretchers into waiting vans.
Svetlana Kuvshinova, who was in the nightclub when the blaze broke out, told the AP it started after three fireworks fountains spewed sparks, igniting the plastic ceiling.
"The fire took seconds to spread," she said. "It was like a dry haystack. There was only one way out. They nearly stampeded me."
Another clubgoer said panic spread quickly through the crowd.
"There was only one exit, and people starting breaking down the doors to get out," said a woman who identified herself only as Olga, smeared with soot and wearing a filthy fur coat. "They were breaking the door and panic set in. Everything was in smoke. I couldn't see anything."
Authorities set about identifying bodies Saturday morning, as ambulances delivered some of the more than 130 injured to planes waiting at the airport, where they were being evacuated to Moscow hospitals.
Perm region security officials said 80 of the injured were in critical condition.
The state-run Vesti news channel reported that the blaze started when a performer juggling fireworks accidentally set the plastic suspended ceiling on fire. But by late morning there was no official confirmation of this account, which was contradicted by some witnesses.
Firefighters were on the scene one minute after the alarm was called in, the ministry said, and they took less than an hour to put the fire out.
Vladimir Markin, a spokesman for Russia's top investigative body, said that there was no suspicion of a terrorist attack. RIA Novosti said the local branch of Russia's Federal Security Service had sifted through the site but found no evidence of a bomb.
Russia has been on edge since last week's bombing of the high-speed Nevsky Express passenger train midway between Moscow and St. Petersburg, which killed 27. It was the first fatal terrorist attack outside Russia's restive Caucasus republics since 2004.
Chechen rebels claimed responsibility for the blast.
Perm, a city of around 1 million people, is about 700 miles east of Moscow in the Ural Mountains.
Enforcement of fire safety standards is notoriously lax in Russia and there have been several catastrophic blazes at drug-treatment facilities, nursing homes and apartment buildings in recent years.
Russia records nearly 18,000 fire deaths a year, several times the per-capita rate in the United States and other Western countries. Nightclub fires have killed thousands of people worldwide.
Ten people died when an entertainer's clothing was ignited during a so-called "fire show" at a Moscow club in March 2007.
In February 2008, a fire in the Golden Rock nightclub in the Siberian city of Omsk killed four people. Officials said the blast might have been caused by natural gas.
A nightclub fire in the U.S. state of Rhode Island in 2003 killed 100 people after pyrotechnics used as a stage prop by the 1980s rock band Great White set ablaze cheap soundproofing foam on the walls and ceiling.
Saturday, December 05, 2009
AP
MOSCOW — Panicked clubgoers crushed each other to death in a popular Russian nightspot as they tried to flee a fast-moving fire that one eyewitness told The Associated Press was started by pyrotechnic fountains set up on the stage.
Officials said 109 people died when the fire tore through the popular Lame Horse nightclub in the city of Perm late Friday, filling the crowded barracks-like building with thick black smoke.
Authorities said they arrested the registered owner of the club and the manager.
Russia's Investigative Committee said Saturday that 98 died on the spot and 11 others later died in hospitals.
Some 130 people were injured and many remain in critical condition, the committee said.
Officials said most of the dead suffered smoke inhalation or were crushed at the exit.
"The fire spread very quickly," said Marina Zabbarova, chief investigator for the local prosecutor's office. "Panic arose which led to a mass death of people."
News footage shot later outside the Lame Horse showed charred bodies lying in rows on the ground amid a light snowfall. Rescue workers carried bodies on stretchers into waiting vans.
Svetlana Kuvshinova, who was in the nightclub when the blaze broke out, told the AP it started after three fireworks fountains spewed sparks, igniting the plastic ceiling.
"The fire took seconds to spread," she said. "It was like a dry haystack. There was only one way out. They nearly stampeded me."
Another clubgoer said panic spread quickly through the crowd.
"There was only one exit, and people starting breaking down the doors to get out," said a woman who identified herself only as Olga, smeared with soot and wearing a filthy fur coat. "They were breaking the door and panic set in. Everything was in smoke. I couldn't see anything."
Authorities set about identifying bodies Saturday morning, as ambulances delivered some of the more than 130 injured to planes waiting at the airport, where they were being evacuated to Moscow hospitals.
Perm region security officials said 80 of the injured were in critical condition.
The state-run Vesti news channel reported that the blaze started when a performer juggling fireworks accidentally set the plastic suspended ceiling on fire. But by late morning there was no official confirmation of this account, which was contradicted by some witnesses.
Firefighters were on the scene one minute after the alarm was called in, the ministry said, and they took less than an hour to put the fire out.
Vladimir Markin, a spokesman for Russia's top investigative body, said that there was no suspicion of a terrorist attack. RIA Novosti said the local branch of Russia's Federal Security Service had sifted through the site but found no evidence of a bomb.
Russia has been on edge since last week's bombing of the high-speed Nevsky Express passenger train midway between Moscow and St. Petersburg, which killed 27. It was the first fatal terrorist attack outside Russia's restive Caucasus republics since 2004.
Chechen rebels claimed responsibility for the blast.
Perm, a city of around 1 million people, is about 700 miles east of Moscow in the Ural Mountains.
Enforcement of fire safety standards is notoriously lax in Russia and there have been several catastrophic blazes at drug-treatment facilities, nursing homes and apartment buildings in recent years.
Russia records nearly 18,000 fire deaths a year, several times the per-capita rate in the United States and other Western countries. Nightclub fires have killed thousands of people worldwide.
Ten people died when an entertainer's clothing was ignited during a so-called "fire show" at a Moscow club in March 2007.
In February 2008, a fire in the Golden Rock nightclub in the Siberian city of Omsk killed four people. Officials said the blast might have been caused by natural gas.
A nightclub fire in the U.S. state of Rhode Island in 2003 killed 100 people after pyrotechnics used as a stage prop by the 1980s rock band Great White set ablaze cheap soundproofing foam on the walls and ceiling.