Twenty-three people died in a fire that destroyed a wooden old people's home in northwest Russia.
Fire gutted the single-storey log building in the village of Podyelsk, about 1,000 km northeast of Moscow, on Saturday evening, the Emergencies Ministry said.
Ministry photographs showed flames engulfing a dozen windows along the side of the log building in the Komi republic. Firefighters tackled the fire amid thick smoke and temperatures as low as minus 35 Celsius.
The fire was extinguished early today, the ministry said.
Three residents were saved and all three staff members on duty survived, and were being questioned by prosecutors.
The Emergencies Ministry said the fire appeared to have started in the building's smoking room.
The fire raised renewed concern over lax fire safety in Russia. Slow evacuation procedures have been blamed for previous deaths, and fire escapes in Soviet-era buildings can be blocked or locked for security.
A total of 62 patients and staff died in a March 2007 fire in an old people's home in southern Krasnodar, and 32 died in November 2007 near the city of Tula, 200 km (125 miles) south of Moscow.
Inspectors had found fire safety violations at the Komi building before, but nothing was done to rectify them, RIA Novosti news agency quoted a Kremlin envoy as saying.
Reuters