A tragedy in Russia
Posted: 2003-04-07 08:23pm
http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/europe/04 ... index.html
Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin
It's all over the Russian news. The school was an old wooden building, and the nearest fire station was 22 km away.MOSCOW, Russia -- At least 21 students and one teacher were killed Monday when fire engulfed a school in a remote village of Siberia, emergency officials said.
Another 10 students needed hospital treatment with burns and other injuries after they attempted to jump out the windows of the two-story wooden building, said a spokesman for the Emergency Situations Ministry in the Siberian republic of Yakutia.
The students were aged between 11 and 18, The Associated Press reported. The cause of the fire has not been determined.
The fire erupted at the beginning of the school day in a rural school in the village of Sydybal, about 5,000 kilometers (3,000 miles) east of Moscow, the ministry spokesman said.
More than 120 students and teachers were in the building at the time, Reuters reported.
Russian President Vladimir Putin called the fire a "major calamity" and ordered the federal government to "provide help to the republic and immediately to the families of the victims," AP said, quoting the ITAR-Tass news agency.
Sydybal does not have a fire department and emergency crews had to travel 19 km (12 miles) to the scene, said a ministry spokesman in Moscow.
Extra medical staff and supplies were being flown in by helicopter from the regional capital of Yakutski, 400 km (250 miles) from the village, Reuters reported.
Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin
