At least 109 people were killed and 134 injured when an inferno sparked by a firework show ripped through a packed Russian nightclub, triggering a stampede as revellers rushed to escape clouds of toxic black smoke.
The pyrotechnics show went disastrously wrong at the Lame Horse nightclub in the Russian city of Perm last night when stray sparks ignited wicker coverings on the walls and ceiling during a party celebrating the club's eighth anniversary.
As partygoers rushed for the club's one and only door, scores were choked or crushed to death. Medics said many of those hospitalised were being kept alive with artificial respirators and that some had burns of more than 60 per cent. Some of the severely injured have been sent to Moscow.
President Dmitry Medvedev ordered a national day of mourning for Monday and demanded tough punishment for the owners of the nightclub who he said had repeatedly ignored warnings from fire inspectors that the premises were unsafe.
"They have neither brains nor conscience," Mr Medvedev told ministers in a televised meeting, criticising the club's owners for failing to come forward immediately after the disaster.
Hundreds of red carnations and candles have been placed around the club on the pavement. The Kremlin said the day of mourning in Russia will have flags at half-mast across the nation. Three days of mourning will be observed in Perm, which is Russia's sixth largest city with a population of 1.2 million.
The fire was Russia's most deadly in decades, emergency officials said, and the worst nightclub fire worldwide since nearly 200 people died at a party in Buenos Aires in 2004.
The fire follows a bombing last month which killed 26 and injured more than 100 on a train travelling between Moscow and St Petersburg, but Russian officials repeatedly maintained the nightclub fire was not another attack.
"This is not a premeditated murder, but this does not lessen the gravity of the crime," Mr Medvedev said on a video-conference with ministers who were sent to deal with the disaster in Perm, 1,150 km northeast of Moscow.
Russian prosecutors said five employees, including the club's owner and founders, had been detained in a criminal case on suspicion of breaching fire regulations and manslaughter.
The United States said the timing of the disaster so soon after the train bombing made it especially painful: "We are deeply saddened to learn of yet another tragedy striking Russia," the White House said in a statement today
The European Union also sent its condolences.
Reuters