Death toll in Russian nightclub fire reaches 109

[December 05, 2009]  MOSCOW (AP) -- Russia's top investigative body says the number of people who died in a nightclub fire in the Urals city of Perm has risen to 109.

The Investigative Committee says 98 died on the spot and 11 others later died in hospitals.

The victims crushed each other to death and suffocated after the fire tore through the popular Lame Horse nightclub in Perm late Friday, filling the crowded barracks-like building with thick black smoke.

The Investigative Committee said Saturday that some 130 people were injured and many remain in critical condition.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

PERM, Russia (AP) - Panicked clubgoers crushed each other to death in a popular Russian nightspot as they tried to flee a fast-moving fire that one eyewitness told The Associated Press was started by pyrotechnic fountains set up on the stage.

Officials said 103 people died when the fire tore through the popular Lame Horse nightclub in the city of Perm late Friday, filling the crowded barracks-like building with thick black smoke. Authorities said they arrested the registered owner of the club and the manager.

Officials said the club managers ignored repeated demands from authorities to change the club's interior to comply with fire safety standards. "They have neither brains, nor conscience," Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said, urging a tough punishment for the culprits.

Officials said most of the dead suffocated or were crushed at the exit.

"The fire spread very quickly," said Marina Zabbarova, chief investigator for the local prosecutor's office. "Panic arose which led to a mass death of people."

News footage shot later outside the Lame Horse showed charred bodies lying in rows on the ground amid a light snowfall. Rescue workers carried bodies on stretchers into waiting vans.

Svetlana Kuvshinova, who was in the nightclub when the blaze broke out, told the AP it started after three fireworks fountains spewed sparks, igniting the plastic ceiling.

"The fire took seconds to spread," she said. "It was like a dry haystack. There was only one way out. They nearly stampeded me."

Another clubgoer said panic spread quickly through the crowd.

"There was only one exit, and people starting breaking down the doors to get out," said a woman who identified herself only as Olga, smeared with soot and wearing a filthy fur coat. "They were breaking the door and panic set in. Everything was in smoke. I couldn't see anything."

A video recorded by one of the clubgoers and run by Russian television stations showed flames engulfing the ceiling decorated with willow twigs as a host shouted in a casual tone: "Ladies and Gentlemen, guests of the club, we are on fire. Please leave the hall!"

People reluctantly and slowly began heading toward the exit, some of them turning back to look at the burning ceiling, but then rushed away in panic as flames quickly spread around seconds later.

Authorities set about identifying bodies Saturday morning, as ambulances delivered some of the more than 130 injured to planes waiting at the airport, where they were being evacuated to Moscow hospitals.

Medical authortities said nearly 90 of the injured were in critical condition.

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.

Zabbarova, the top investigator, said that there was no suspicion of a terrorist attack.

Russia has been on edge since last week's bombing of the high-speed Nevsky Express passenger train midway between Moscow and St. Petersburg, which killed 27 in the first deadly terrorist attack outside Russia's restive Caucasus republics since 2004. Chechen rebels claimed responsibility for the blast.

Perm, a city of around 1 million people, is about 700 miles (1,200 kilometers) east of Moscow in the Ural Mountains.

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

Medvedev, who summoned top officials to report on the fire and rescue efforts, urged changes in the law to toughen punishment for violation of fire safety standards.

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 an entertainer's clothing was ignited during a so-called "fire show" 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.

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.

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Associated Press Writers Douglas Birch, Jim Heintz and Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow contributed to this report.

[Associated Press]

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