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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, October 13, 2003

30 psychiatric patients killed in fire in Belarus

Death toll in the fire that engulfed a mental hospital in Belarus on Sunday rose to 30, Belarussian Emergency Situations Minister Valery Astapov said.


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Death toll in the fire that engulfed a mental hospital in Belarus on Sunday rose to 30, Belarussian Emergency Situations Minister Valery Astapov said.

The fire, set by a patient suffering from pyromania, broke out in the Kozlovichi mental asylum in the Grodno region at about 4 a.m. local time (0100 GMT), Interfax reported.

Rescue workers initially found 29 bodies from the debris of the fire, and one person died of burns later, the news agency said.

Some 31 people have been evacuated from the building of the hospital, which is about 250 kilometers west of the capital Minsk.

Hospital staff was unable to put out the fire on their own and therefore reported to the fire service half an hour after the fire began, according to Astapov.

When firefighters arrived, the entire building was already engulfed in flames and its roof had collapsed.

It was the worst fire in Belarus over the past 50 years, Astapov said. The hospital personnel had prevented two arson attempts committed by patients before.

The minister admitted that "the degree of the patients' disorders significantly complicated the rescue operation in the asylum."

The hospital is a fully government-financed institution designed for disabled mental patients abandoned by their relatives, according to the Belarussian presidential press service.

Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko ordered the prosecutors and security forces to thoroughly investigate the incident and report the results to him within one week.


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