Be Killed in Fire at Russian Nightclub

The New York Times : MOSCOW — A fire, apparently caused by an indoor pyrotechnical display, roared through a crowded nightclub in a central Russian city on Friday night, killing about 90 people and wounding scores of others, the local news media reported.

The authorities in the city, Perm, which is 700 miles northeast of Moscow, said many of the people died from smoke inhalation and a stampede that occurred after the display was detonated at 11:15 p.m., according to RIA Novosti, the state news agency.

Russian state television showed photos of bodies piled up in front of the club, the Lame Horse. More than 200 people were inside at the time of the fire, attending a party celebrating the club’s eighth anniversary, according to news reports. Most of those in attendance were young workers at the club, their friends and relatives.

Russia has been on edge after a bombing of a luxury train last week that killed 26 people. With that in mind, soon after news of the large death toll in Perm circulated early Saturday morning, law enforcement officials were quick to emphasize that terrorism was not suspected.

"The accident was due to a violation of instructions when launching fireworks," Vladimir Markin, an official at the prosecutor general’s investigation committee, told the Interfax news agency.

Perm, with a population of roughly one million, is one of Russia’s largest cities.

The fire recalled a similar disaster in Rhode Island in 2003, when a rock band’s pyrotechnics set off a blaze that killed 100 people.

High death tolls in fires in Russia are not rare. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the country has been plagued by such disasters, often caused by rampant violation of safety codes, aging building and electrical systems, and poor firefighting equipment.

Early Saturday morning, Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin’s office said he had established a panel to investigate the cause of the fire and had sent two airplanes to Perm to transport people with serious burns to hospitals, RIA Novosti said.

Source: The New York Times