Four dead, six missing in Russia housing collapse

MOSCOW, Feb 28 – Four people were killed and six missing after a nine-storey apartment block in the southern Russian city of Astrakhan collapsed due to a gas explosion, the emergencies ministry said Tuesday.

A dozen people were also injured in Monday’s building collapse triggered by a gas leak which some reports said may have been caused by one of the residents of the building trying to commit suicide.

“Four people have been found dead. They have not been identified. The fate of six people is unknown,” the emergencies ministry said in a statement.

The entire block, part of a Soviet-era housing complex, disintegrated and collapsed in a heap of rubble and dust after the explosion blew out its lower floors.

Blasts caused by faulty gas systems are a frequent occurrence in Russia and the former Soviet Union because antiquated infrastructure has not been modernised in the last decades.

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