MOSCOW (Reuters) – A fire at a fuel station in the southern Russian region of Dagestan late on Monday killed 35 people, Russia’s emergency services ministry said on Tuesday.
The fire started at an auto repair shop on the roadside of a highway in Dagestani capital Makhachkala on Monday night and caused blasts as it spread to the nearby filling station, officials said.
“It’s like a war here,” a witness said.
Images shared by the emergency services ministry showed firefighters trying to put out a colossal blaze as flames rose high in the night sky.
Footage posted online showed a one-storey building ablaze, Reuters TV reported.
“During the rescue operation in Makhachkala, the bodies of five more victims were found. The total death toll is 35,” the ministry said on Telegram.
According to the ministry, 105 people were injured. The press service of the head of Dagestan, Sergei Melikov, said on Tuesday evening that 64 people were being treated in hospitals, 17 of them to be transported to medical centers in Moscow.
Thirteen of the wounded were children, Interfax reported earlier, citing the Dagestani health ministry.
It took firefighters more than 3-1/2 hours to put out the fire that spread into an area of 600 square metres (715 square yards), TASS reported, citing a statement from the Russian emergency service.
(Reporting by Maria Tsvetkova and Maxim Rodionov; additional reporting by Alexander Marrow; Editing by Chris Reese, Muralikumar Anantharaman, Simon Cameron-Moore and Jonathan Oatis)
