A Russian psychiatric home fire killed 37 people early Friday, the latest tragedy related to mental health institutions in the country, The Times of India reported Friday.
Officials said that 37 people were killed in a fire swept through a psychiatric hospital in northwest Russia at around 2:45 a.m. Friday.
The Russian psychiatric home fire was reportedly started by a pyromania patient who was either smoking or deliberately set fire to his bed at the psychiatric hospital in the village of Luka, 137 miles southwest of Saint Petersburg.
The said facility was a single-storey wood-and-concrete building that houses around 60 male patients including 15 bedbound ones, and according to officials the institution had been previously warned to improve its fire safety by the authorities.
"According to preliminary information, one of the patients set fire to himself and his bed," the investigative committee said in a statement.
"During a fire in the Oksochi psychiatric hospital 37 people died, regional investigators said in a statement, adding that 30 bodies had already been retrieved from the wreckage.
Local residents said a nurse was consumed by the fire while saving several patients.
The said nurse left behind a husband and four children, authorities said, adding that they are now planning to decorate her posthumously.
The Times of India reported that the Russian psychiatric home fire was the latest tragedy to hit mental institutions in Russia.
In April, a fire reportedly raved a psychiatric facility in the Moscow region, killing 38 people most of them were consumed in their sleep behind barred windows.
In previous reports, it was found out that scores of people had died in house fires. In 2009, 156 were killed in a nightclub fire in the city of Perm, 700 miles east of Moscow; the incident was even referred to as one of the deadliest accidents in Russia's modern history.
© 2017 Jobs & Hire All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
