05 Dec 2009 18:29:48 GMT
Source: Reuters
* At least 109 killed, 134 hospitalisedMatch: Perm and others.
Perm (pĕrm, pyĕrm) pronunciation
A city of west-central Russia on the Kama River in the foothills of the Ural Mountains. Founded in the early 18th century when a copper foundry was built there, it grew rapidly as an industrial center in the 19th century. Population: 989,000.
* Deadliest Russian fire for decades
* Kremlin demands severe punishment for club owners
* Prosecutors blame poor safety, rule out bomb attack
(Adds concerns about fire safety, comment, details)
By Denis Sinyakov
, Russia, Dec 5 (Reuters) - At least 109 people were killed and 134 injured when a blaze ignited by fireworks ripped through a packed Russian nightclub, starting a stampede as revellers rushed to escape clouds of toxic black smoke.
The pyrotechnics show went wrong at the Lame Horse nightclub in the Russian city of Perm on Friday night when sparks ste fire to wicker coverings on the walls and ceiling during a party celebrating the club's eighth anniversary.
As partygoers rushed for the only door, scores were choked or crushed to death. Medics said many of those hospitalised were being kept alive with respirators and that some had burns of more than 60 percent.
Some of the severely injured have been sent to specialist burn units in Moscow, St Petersburg and other cities.
A clubber who survived, identifying herself as Svetlana, told Reuters: "Everything was catching fire so quickly as if it was made of hay, it happened in seconds. We could not all get through, everyone was pushing, from all sides."
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," Medvedev told ministers in a televised meeting, criticsing the club's owners for failing to come forward immediately after the disaster.
A Reuters photographer in Perm, 1,150 km (720 miles) northeast of Moscow, saw groups of distraught people visit a morgue to identify victims. Others, some weeping or smoking, stared blankly at the lists of the dead.
According to the Emergencies Ministry, the oldest fatality was 44-years-old and the youngest just 21.
Hundreds of red carnations and candles have been placed outside the club.
Friday's 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.
"This is not a premeditated murder, but this does not lessen the gravity of the crime," Medvedev said.
Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev told Medvedev there was no evidence of a bomb. Russian prosecutors said five employees, including the club's owner and founders, had been detained in on suspicion of breaching fire regulations and manslaughter.
A Perm resident watching firemen pull burned people out of the club said corruption was to blame.
"As always in Russia, there is irresponsibility and bribery," said the local, who only gave his first name, Oleg.
"We need to find the fire inspector who gave permission to this club and why he allowed it," he said.
FIREWORK SHOW
Video footage of the disaster showed a merry crowd celebrating when a presenter suddenly announced:
"Ladies and gentlemen, we are on fire. Leave the hall. Line up in a queue."
Then the camera shows fire roaring along the wicker-covered ceiling of the 500 square metre (5400 square ft) club. Many revellers slowly moved to a narrow exit -- some still sipping cocktails and smoking.
A few moments later, a stampede broke out as heavy black smoke quickly filled the hall and the crowd of more than 200 guests rushed headlong trying to escape.
Immediately after the fire, dozens of charred bodies were piled on the pavement outside the club as medics moved the injured into ambulances.
Blood-covered women in evening clothes and knee-high black boots lay on stretchers.
Russian officials have in the past blamed poor fire safety standards for high death tolls in fires at orphanages, hospitals and other institutions. More than 15,000 Russians died last years in fires, according to government figures.
The Kremlin said the Dec. 7 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. (Writing by Guy Faulconbridge and Amie Ferris-Rotman; Editing by Angus MacSwan)
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By MANSUR MIROVALEV, Associated Press Writer Mansur Mirovalev, Associated Press Writer – 2 hrs 50 mins ago
PERM, Russia – President Dmitry Medvedev on Saturday demanded that Russia tighten its notoriously lax fire codes after the deadliest blaze since the Soviet era killed at least 107 people celebrating in a nightclub with a decorative twig ceiling and single exit.
About 130 people were injured, dozens critically, when onstage fireworks set the ceiling of the Lame Horse nightclub ablaze soon after midnight, witnesses and officials said. Many victims were trapped in a panicked crush for the exit as they attempted to escape the flames and thick black smoke.
Officials said club managers had ignored repeated demands from authorities to change the interior to comply with fire safety standards. Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu told Medvedev by videoconference from Perm that the club managers violated the law by running the fireworks display that triggered the fire.
He said the club managers had been fined twice in the past for breaking fire safety regulations, which he did not specify. Russian clubs and restaurants often cover ceilings with plastic insulation and a layer of willow twigs to create a rustic look, one of many uses of combustible materials in buildings by businessmen who bribe officials to look the other way.
The Lame Horse's managers had been scheduled before the fire to report Monday on their progress fixing the flaws.
"They have neither brains, nor conscience," Medvedev said. "They must face the maximum punishment."
He declared a national day of mourning Monday.
Authorities quickly arrested two registered co-owners of the club, its managing director, and two other suspects. One other suspect was injured in the fire and remains in critical condition.
Medvedev demanded that lawmakers draft changes to toughen the criminal punishment for failing to comply with fire safety standards.
Enforcement of fire safety standards is infamously poor in Russia and there have been several catastrophic blazes at drug-treatment facilities, nursing homes, apartment buildings and nightclubs in recent years. The nation records up to 18,000 fire deaths a year, several times the per-capita rate in the United States and other Western countries.
Gennady Gudkov, a senior member of the Kremlin-controlled lower house of parliament, said that toughening criminal punishment won't solve the problem. He told the ITAR-Tass news agency that many fire safety officials are corrupt and often turn a blind eye to violations for money.
Leonid Miroshnichenko, who lost his daughter in the fire, said that he believed the ceiling of twigs and plastic sheeting contributed to the death toll.
"I would like to see the official who allowed this club to open. It was he who killed my daughter," he said.
Video recorded by a clubgoer and shown on Russian television showed partygoers dancing before sparks from pyrotechnic fountains on stage ignited the club's ceiling around midnight. Witness Svetlana Kuvshinova told The Associated Press that the blaze swiftly consumed the twigs.
"People were having fun, and it was the peak of the fun when I looked up and saw flames on the ceiling," Kuvshinova said. "The fire took seconds to spread. It was like a dry haystack."
The footage showed the fire spreading through what appeared to be willow twigs as a host shouted without urgency: "Ladies and gentlemen, guests of the club, we are on fire. Please leave the hall."
"There was only one way out," Kuvshinova said. "They nearly stampeded me."
The video showed people reluctantly heading toward the exit, some of them still holding their drinks and turning back to look at the burning ceiling. Within seconds they started rushing away in panic as flames spread through the hall like a fireball.
"There was only one exit, and people starting breaking down the doors to get out," said a woman who identified herself only as Olga, her face and expensive fur coat smeared with soot. "They were breaking the door and panic set in. Everything was in smoke. I couldn't see anything."
A nightclub fire in the U.S. state of Rhode Island in 2003 killed 100 people after pyrotechnics used as a stage prop by the 1980s rock band Great White set ablaze cheap soundproofing foam on the walls and ceiling. Nightclub fires have killed thousands of people worldwide.
Russia has been on edge since last week's bombing of the high-speed Nevsky Express passenger train midway between Moscow and St. Petersburg, in which 27 people died in the first deadly terrorist attack outside Russia's restive Caucasus republics since 2004. Chechen rebels claimed responsibility for the blast.
Russia's top investigative body said the fire killed 109, while the Emergency Situations Ministry said 107 people had died. The cause for the discrepancy wasn't immediately clear.
Officials said nearly 90 of the more than 130 people injured in the fire had severe burns and scores remained in critical condition. Many of the injured were flown to top emergency hospitals in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
Firefighters were on the scene in downtown Perm one minute after the alarm was called in, the Emergency Situations Ministry said, and they took less than an hour to put the fire out. Most of the dead suffocated or were crushed at the exit, officials said.
Many relatives waited for hours at the Perm morgue, not knowing whether their relatives were dead or alive.
"I'm simply devastated, I can't believe it's happening to me," said Yevgeny Porfiryev, his eyes red from tears after he found his 26-year-old son Timur among the dead.
Emergency Situations Ministry officials called the fire the worst in the nation's post-Soviet history. The previous most deadly blaze killed 63 people at a nursing home in southern Russia in March 2007.
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Associated Press Writers Douglas Birch, Jim Heintz and Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow contributed to this report.
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Sunday, Dec 6, 2009 06:25 PST
Russian club fire death toll reaches 112
By MANSUR MIROVALEV
The owner of the nightclub where at least 112 people died in Russia's worst fire in decades was taken to court for a detention hearing Sunday as shocked and grieving relatives began to bury the victims of the disaster.
About 130 remained hospitalized, many in critical condition, with injuries from the early Saturday blaze, which witnesses said was sparked by onstage fireworks that shot into the decorative twig ceiling of the Lame Horse club.
The federal Investigative Committee said the club owner had been detained along with the club's executive director, its artistic director and a businessman hired to install pyrotechnics on the night of the blaze. The committee did not provide their names.
The commitee's Web site said they were suspected of negligence causing the death of two or more people and violating fire safety rules.
The club owner and two of the three other suspects arrived at Leninsky District Court in this Ural Mountains industrial city to hear whether they will be jailed for the length of the investigation, a police colonel outside the court told The Associated Press. He said was not authorized to give his name. The hearing was closed to the public.
Sergei Dergunov, the man who provided the fireworks, was ordered detained for the duration of the investigation, his lawyer Yekaterina Golysheva said outside the court.
Mourning residents were indignant over what they call negligence on the part of the club's management, which President Dmitry Medvedev also criticized in a nationally televised videoconference on Saturday.
Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu said that the club managers had been fined twice in the past for breaking fire safety regulations, which he did not specify. Russian clubs and restaurants often cover ceilings with plastic insulation and a layer of willow twigs to create a rustic look, one of many uses of combustible materials in buildings by businessmen who bribe officials to look the other way.
Nadezhda Zhizhina placed flowers on the icy ground outside the Perm City Morgue in memory of her 21-year-old son, Sergei.
She said she wasn't expecting the compensation officials have promised to other victims' relatives because Sergei earned pocket money at the club as an unofficial administrator.
"I can't even imagine what to do," Zhizhina said, weeping. "He was a golden boy."
She said Sergei's wife, Yulia, was eight months pregnant.
The disaster has shaken this town of over 1 million, mobilizing even those who didn't lose relatives -- such as Marina Dryonina.
"This is nothing but criminal negligence," she said. "A terrible tragedy for our town."
Many victims were trapped in a panicked crush for the exit as they attempted to escape the flames and thick black smoke.
Emergency Ministry spokeswoman Darya Kochneva said a man flown to a Moscow hospital had died of severe burns, brining the toll to at least 112.
Enforcement of fire safety standards is infamously poor in Russia and there have been several catastrophic blazes at drug-treatment facilities, nursing homes, apartment buildings and nightclubs in recent years. The nation records up to 18,000 fire deaths a year, several times the per-capita rate in the United States and other Western countries.
Medvedev demanded that lawmakers draft changes to toughen the criminal punishment for failing to comply with fire safety standards.
Monday has been designated a national day of mourning, with entertainment events and television programs canceled.
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Associated Press writer David Nowak contributed from Moscow.
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