At least 22 people have died in connection with a fire at a private nursing home in the Siberian city of Kemerovo.
“A further six people were injured. Two of them were taken to hospital with burns and are in critical condition,” the Investigative Committee of Russia, one of the country’s law enforcement agencies, wrote on the Telegram messaging service.
The fire broke out just before dawn on Christmas Eve morning and quickly spread through the two-story wooden house.
Russia’s Investigative Committee has opened an investigation into causing the death of another. According to the authority, the nursing home was run illegally.
How the fire started has not been determined, but local media reports that the building was heated with wood-burning stoves.
“The preliminary cause of the fire is that the fire safety rules were disregarded,” the authorities in Kemerovo write on their website.