Eleven people, including ten Uzbeks, died on Tuesday (January 21st) in the fire of a wooden building housing migrant workers in the Russian region of Tomsk in western Siberia, authorities said.
According to the regional branch of the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations, the fire broke out around 4 a.m. local time (10 p.m. GMT) and completely destroyed the 200 m2 building. "The bodies of eleven people have been found," the ministry said in a statement.
The Regional Investigation Committee said in a statement that two people had managed to get out of the burning building alive. It was located in the village of Pritchoulymski, about a hundred kilometers northeast of the regional capital, Tomsk.
Poorly paid jobs, broken safety rules
"According to preliminary data, 12 Uzbek citizens lived in this building. Ten of them died on the spot, two received medical aid," said the Uzbek Ministry of Emergency Situations on its Telegram page.
The eleventh person was a Russian citizen, the regional authorities said in a statement. According to the same source, all the victims worked for a Tomsk-based forestry company, Greenwood.
"The wooden building that burned on the sawmill territory, rented by Greenwood, was not intended for people to live there," the statement added. Tomsk region governor Sergei Zhvashkin went to the scene and ordered fire safety checks throughout the region.
Several million migrant workers from Central Asia live in Russia, often in low-paid jobs where security rules are not followed.
Deadly explosions or fires are relatively common in Russia due to the obsolescence of infrastructure, often dating back to Soviet times, or failure to meet safety standards. In early January, eight Vietnamese workers had already died in the fire of metal shacks where they were staying in a Moscow suburb, on the territory of an agricultural complex.
With AFP
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