AT LEAST 86 people were killed and 114 injured when a blast caused by fireworks ripped through a packed nightclub in the Russian city of Perm last night, the emergencies ministry said.
The blast tore through the Lame Horse nightclub in the centre of Perm, which lies some 700 miles east of Moscow near the Ural mountains, at 11.15pm local time (8.15pm Irish time).
Russian state-run television channel Vesti-24 showed charred bodies piled on top of each other in the snow-covered street outside the club, where firemen and investigators heaved debris and black body bags.
Blood-covered women in fancy evening clothes were shown lying on stretchers as scores of policemen swarmed around.
The emergencies ministry told Reuters that at least 86 people had died in the blast and 114 were injured. State media had previously put the death toll at 100.
"The blast was caused by fireworks," an emergencies ministry spokeswoman said. "We are not talking about a terrorist attack; we are talking about a failure to observe fire regulations," ITAR-TASS news agency quoted a spokesman for the prosecutor general's investigative unit as saying.
Reports suggest that at least 200 people were in the club at the time of the blast.
Perm is the sixth largest city in Russia, with a population of 1.2 million. Reports suggest that there were about 200 people in the nightclub at the time.
It was not immediately clear if the pyrotechnics were kept in storage at the club or being used as part of a show like in the fire that killed 100 people at a rock club in the US state of Rhode Island in 2003. Fireworks were considered one of the causes for a blaze in a Bangkok nightclub that killed 65 people in January.
The blast follows a deadly train bombing last week, which killed 26 and injured more than 100 on a train travelling between Moscow and St Petersburg, for which Chechen Islamist militants claimed responsibility. - (Reuters)