37 killed in Russian mental center fire

A fire at a central Russian psychiatric center has killed 37 people with conflicting reports on the number of missing ranging from three to eight.

According to Russian investigators cited in local press reports, the Friday morning blaze took place at the Oksochi psychoneurological institution in the village of Luka near the city of Veliky Novgorod.

The patients were reported to be handicapped elderly, mentally ill and chronically institutionalized.

The incident is the latest in a series of fires at mental institutions across Russia this year.

“According to refined data, there were about 60 people inside. More than 20 were evacuated by the facility’s administration,” said the head of Russia’s Emergencies Ministry Oleg Voronov as cited in a RIA Novosti report.

Some bodies have reportedly been burned beyond recognition as most patients treated at the center were seriously ill and incapacitated, making it difficult for hospital staff to evacuate them.

This is while the exact number of victims has not yet been determined.

“Everything has collapsed inside as a result of the fire,” a local police source was cited as saying in the report. “The people believed to be inside are now most likely dead.”

According to an initial probe, the blaze began after one of the patients set his bed on fire, the investigative committee announced.

“Doctors saw one of the patients of ward number 2 on fire. He could have possibly caused the fire,” said Novgorod Governor Sergey Mitin, as cited in local press reports.

“He could have been smoking in bed, and thus could have set the quilting cotton of his mattress ablaze,” Mitin further noted.

The authorities, meanwhile, are still searching the area surrounding the metal center to find the missing.

Russia’s Emergencies Ministry (Emercom) and the state prosecutor’s office say they had tried to force the hospital administrators “not to use the building,” since it was made of wood and had low fire resistance.

“Investigators are carrying out searches, seizing documents at the psychiatric hospital,” spokesman for the Investigative Committee Vladimir Markin has told reporters, adding that witnesses “are being found and questioned.”

Such blazes in medical facilities are not uncommon in Russia, with at least 19 similar incidents reported in the past seven years.

In April, 36 people were killed in a fire at a psychiatric hospital on the outskirts of Moscow. A nurse and two patients were the only survivors.