Fire at Russian School for Deaf Kills 28

MAKHACHKALA, Russia (AP) -- As wind-whipped flames raced through their southern Russia boarding school Thursday, deaf children cowered under furniture, unable to hear instructions from rescuers going bed-to-bed trying to save them from a fire that killed 28 classmates.

A total of 106 students from the Republican School for Deaf Children remained hospitalized, with nine of them in serious condition, health officials said.

The blaze came on the heels of a fire that killed 22 students whose wooden schoolhouse burned to the ground in Siberia on Monday. In Moscow, Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov ordered an immediate fire safety survey of all Russian schools, particularly in rural areas, in an attempt to prevent any new tragedies.

``The country has once again been shaken by tragedy,'' President Vladimir Putin said in a telegram to the Dagestan region's leader, Magomedali Magomedov, reported the Kremlin press service. ``I sincerely share the enormous sorrow that has affected hundreds of people, first of all the parents.''

Rescue efforts in Thursday's fire were hampered by the children's inability to hear alarms _ school employees raced through rooms to shake each child awake. When firefighters arrived, they were at a loss to give children evacuation instructions and many children hid under furniture in fear, they said.

``The children did not seem to realize what they were doing,'' firefighter Ruslan Chupanov told Channel One television.

Rescuers and staff at the 166-student school in the Dagestan region, about 1,000 miles south of Moscow, saved many children by throwing them from second-story windows onto mattresses and other bedding heaved out of the burning school to break their fall, teacher Marzhanat Aliyeva said.

The fire burned mainly in the wing where the youngest boys lived, and all the victims were boys aged 6 to 14, Aliyeva said.

The Dagestan Health Ministry said the remains of 25 victims were identified Thursday.

Distraught, sobbing parents and other relatives crowded outside the Makhachkala hospital and near the school, trying to find their children's names on handwritten lists.

Aminat Murtuzaliyeva, from the town of Derbent, said she heard about the fire at her son's school on the radio in the morning. She spent the 90-minute bus ride to Makhachkala fearing the worst, but found her 13-year-old son, Murtuz, in the hospital.

``I am pleased that the doctors have all the necessary medicine and are treating the children well. I only wish they would give us more information on their condition,'' she said.

Emergency officials said the fire started at about 2 a.m. and may have been caused by a short circuit after electricity was restored to the building following a blackout.

Zoya Darayeva, the principal, told Rossiya television that a night attendant smelled smoke coming from a room but the door was locked. She then saw flames coming from an outlet in a corridor, and thick smoke.

The school staff first tried to extinguish the flames themselves, delaying a call to the fire department by at least nine minutes, emergency officials said. High winds also interfered with firefighting efforts.

The brick school building was heavily damaged. All the windows were shattered, and television footage showed charred bed frames and furniture. The walls were blackened.

The fire came three days after a blaze destroyed a wooden schoolhouse in the Siberian region of Yakutia, killing 22 students between the ages of 11 and 18 and injuring at least 10 others.

Prosecutors blamed that blaze on building code violations which a regional prosecutor said contributed to the high death toll. The violations included a crumbling staircase at the front door and a toilet placed in a fire escape, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported, quoting regional deputy prosecutor Sergei Nemkov.

The State Duma, the lower house of parliament, began its session Thursday with a minute of silence.

Fifty people a day _ 18,000 a year _ die in fires in Russia. Most fires are caused by people smoking while drinking or being careless. Many buildings also have inadequate fireproofing and alarm systems.

Russia's fire death toll is 4 1/2 times greater than that in the United States, which has twice the population, and 12 1/2 times greater than that in the United Kingdom.

The Izvestia newspaper reported that 700 fires damaged school buildings across the country last year.