Five out of 15 people killed in a fire at a dormitory in Russia's Astrakhan region, were children, sources from the southern regional centre of the Russian Ministry for Emergency Situations told Itar-Tass on Monday. Two boys aged 12, a 17-months-old boy and two girls aged 11 and 14 died in the blaze, the sources said. “Three children died in the fire together with their parents,” they added. “Six people, including a 16-year-old girl, were hospitalized,” they reported. The Astrakhan region governor declared Monday a day of mourning for the victims of the fire. State flags are at half-mast in the region, and all entertainment events were cancelled. The fire that broke out at a former dormitory in the Atrakhan region settlement of Molodyozhny on Saturday night was nested in a vacant apartment illegally taken by disadvantaged citizens. The blaze spread quickly through the wooden building and cut off evacuation routes. Twenty-nine families, all in all 79 tenants, including 19 children, lived in the building. Sixty-six persons were evacuated. They were temporarily accommodated at their relatives and in a kindergarten in the settlement of Akraraisky. Fifteen died in the accident. Criminal proceedings have been launched. The fire alarm was out of order in the Astrakhan region's dormitory, which caught fire on Saturday night, and tenants illegally connected to the power network, a source at the Emergency Situations Ministry told Itar-Tass on Sunday. “The building was dilapidated, so the Astrakhan governor ordered the district chief in 2005 to form a resettlement commission and to demolish the dormitory,” the source said. The resettlement commission examined the building last May. A number of fire safety violations were exposed and local officials were ordered to eliminate the drawbacks. Some of that job was done, but the fire alarm was still out of order.
