14 DAY TRIAL // 36 people have died in a fire at a psychiatric institution outside Moscow, the capital city of Russia.
Castanet reports that the mental health hospital in the Ramenskoye settlement burned down on Friday, killing two doctors and several patients.
“According to preliminary reports, 36 people died, including two medical personnel,” Russia’s Health Ministry spokesman Oleg Salagay says in a statement.
Press TV wrote that the flames broke out in Psychiatric Hospital 14 in Ramenskoe during the early morning.
At this point, there is no indication of foul play in this case, and preliminary investigations show that a short-circuit may have caused the fire at the facility.
Fire emergency crews were called in at 2:30 a.m. local time (2230 GMT) but could not control the flames right away.
Of the 41 people that were in the mental clinic at the time, only three survived the blaze. The facility incurred massive structural damage and it was burnt to a skeleton, a law enforcement official describes.
“The building burned down almost completely,” the source says.
A representative for the country's Health Ministry also mentions that a nurse was among those who made it out of the hospital alive.
She also helped lead the two remaining patients to safety, aiding them in reaching an exit and upping their odds for survival.
The youngest patients who perished in the blaze were 20 years old, while the oldest was 76 years old.
Reps for the Saint Petersburg Emergency Ministry add that three people, all patients, perished in another fire on January 4.
A 43-year-old woman has been arrested for accidentally setting the fire at the Pokrovskaya Hospital in the city of Saint Petersburg. Two people were locked up in the clinic's isolation wards at the time, and they died in the fire.