A fire engulfed a boarding school for the deaf in southern Russia early today killing 28 children.
The fire broke out overnight at the school at Makhachkala in the southern region of Dagestan when the children were asleep.
"I can confirm there are 28 children dead, 16 others have been taken to a special center with burns and 104 people are in hospital," an Interior Ministry spokeswoman in Makhachkala said.
She cautioned that the death toll could rise since some of the survivors were suffering from serious burns.
The fire was the second at a Russian school this week. On Monday 22 school children died in a fire in a remote village in Siberia.
Strong winds in the region had cut power to the school for a time during the night and there was speculation that the outbreak of the fire could have been caused by an electrical short-circuit.