Ruled out: Terrorist attack. Fire in Russina night club. Over 90 dead 6:10 PM PST

Dozens killed in Russian club fire - Russia- msnbc.com

Will be following this to see if any
other angles break out. Death toll is now
over 100. May climb higher according to
numerous other reports.

Dozens killed in Russian nightclub fire


Fireworks reportedly started blaze along plastic ceiling; stampede followed

World Blog: Moscow, Russia

msnbc.com news services

updated 26 minutes ago

At least 94 people were killed and 139 injured Friday when a blast caused by fireworks ripped through a packed Russian nightclub, causing a stampede, the Emergencies Ministry said.

The blast tore through the nightclub in the center of Perm, a city of 1.2 million near the Ural mountains.

"The latest death toll is 94 with another 139 people injured," a spokeswoman for the local Emergencies Ministry said by telephone.

Regional security minister Igor Orlov said the club had a suspended plastic ceiling that caught fire quickly when ignited by so-called “cold fireworks,” which generally are fountain-type displays with lower temperatures than conventional fireworks, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.

"The majority of the deaths were the result of burns or gas inhalation," the state-run news agency RIA Novosti quoted Vladimir Markin, a spokesman for Russia's top investigate body, as saying. "Along with this, there was a crush at the exit."

The state-run television channel Vesti-24 showed charred bodies piled on top of each other outside the club, where firefighters and investigators heaved debris and black body bags.

No 'terrorist attack'

The blaze follows a train bombing last Friday which killed 26 and injured more than 100 on a train traveling between Moscow and St Petersburg, for which Chechen Islamist militants claimed responsibility.

That blast stoked fears that Russia could face a nationwide bombing campaign, but Russian officials played down any links between the train attack and Friday's nightclub disaster.

"We are not talking about a terrorist attack," Oleg Chirkunov, the governor of Perm region, told Vesti-24.
Detectives said they did not suspect a bomb attack.
"We are not talking about a terrorist attack; we are talking about a failure to observe fire regulations," the ITAR-TASS news agency quoted a spokesman for a prosecutor's office as saying.

Blood-covered women in evening clothes were shown lying on stretchers as scores of policemen swarmed around. At least 200 people were dining in the club.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev ordered the formation of a government commission to deal with the incident.

18,000 fire deaths a year

Enforcement of fire safety standards in Russia is notoriously lax and in recent years there have been several catastrophic blazes at drug-treatment facilities and apartment buildings.

Russia records nearly 18,000 fire deaths a year, several times the per capita rate in the United States and other Western countries. Nightclub fires have killed thousands of people worldwide.

Ten people died when a so-called "fire show" went out of control at a Moscow club in March 2007.

In February 2008, a fire in the Golden Rock nightclub in the Siberian city of Omsk killed four people. Officials said the blast might have been caused by natural gas.


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34280116/ns/world_news-europe