MOSCOW (AP) -- The death toll from a fire at a building in the Siberian region of Tuva rose to 25, emergency officials said Thursday.
Rescue workers digging through the charred debris of the building in Kyzyl, the capital of Tuva, have found another seven bodies since the blaze was extinguished late Wednesday, said Viktor Beltsov, a spokesman for the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations.
The blaze was one of the worst residential fires in Russia this year.
Nineteen people were hospitalized in serious condition with burns and broken bones, Beltsov said, including seven children.
Reports conflicted on whether the two-story building that housed 142 people was a dormitory for workers of a nearby utility plant or simply an apartment building.
Witnesses told the ITAR-Tass news agency that the building's electrical switchboard sparked the fire. ITAR-Tass also reported that electricity had been shut off to the entire building last month because residents had not paid electricity bills, but some residents had jury-rigged electrical connections because of the winter temperature that had dipped to four degrees below zero.
Russia's rate of fire deaths _ 18,000 a year _ is nearly five times the number of fire deaths in the United States, which has twice the population.
Tuva is about 2,920 miles southeast of Moscow.
