(Reuters) -A fire ripped through an old people’s home in Russia’s Siberia region, killing 22 people, investigators said on Saturday.
The blaze gutted the second floor of the building, which was not officially registered as a home for the elderly, but was out by the early hours when rescuers finished combing the rubble in Kemerovo city, state media and emergency services said.
Many homes for the elderly operate without authorisation in Russia, officials said, meaning they were considered private property and not subject to inspections.
RIA news agency, citing city authorities, said breaches of fire safety regulations could have been the cause for Friday night’s disaster in the city, 3,600 km (2,200 miles) east of Moscow.
Kemerovo saw one of the deadliest fires in Russia of recent times when a blaze swept through the upper floors of the “Winter Cherry” shopping centre in 2018, killing 64 people.
(Reporting by Ron Popeski, Rhea Binoy and Vladimir Soldatkin; Editing by Chris Reese, Edmund Klamann and Andrew Cawthorne)
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