A gas explosion in Magnitogorsk with dead and dozens missing on New Year’s Day shook Russia. Even President Vladimir Putin flew from his holiday resort of Sochi to the city on the Urals to find out about the rescue work and talk to victims.
The explosion at 4:00 am local time (00:00 CET) had a whole rise of a large block of flats collapse like a house of cards. In the ruins, rescuers were looking for victims in a race over time because the survivors were threatened with death by freezing at 20 degrees.
Four house residents were found dead in the course of New Year’s Eve. Later, three more bodies were discovered in the rubble. „But we can not get them out,“ civil protection minister Yevgeny Sinichev said on Russian television. He estimated that the clearing will take another two days. In the evening (local time), the governor of the Siberian Chelyabinsk region Boris Dubrovsky said that the fate of more than 35 people is still unclear. Unfortunately, this included seven children.
