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Residents of house hit by household gas blast to get new flats

After the fire 21 flats were unfit for residence. Nine were completely destroyed

MOSCOW, October 18 (Itar-Tass) — The Moscow region government will offer aid to residents of the apartment house in Bronnitsy, Moscow region, where a household gas explosion occurred on Monday, the regional minister of social protection, Valentina Lagunkina, said on Tuesday. They will get new apartments, the minister said.

“A lot of people living in that house have suffered,” as a whole section, with three apartments on each floor, collapsed, she noted. “The situation is such that we will have to move tenants out of that house. We are now considering measures of social support for the families where people were injured or killed,” the minister noted.

She said Moscow Region Governor Boris Gromov had issued instructions on that.

Meanwhile, four residents of the house – three pensioners and a young man, are still missing, sources from the emergency situations department of the Moscow region told Tass on Tuesday.

The sources said ministry specialists, as well as the headquarters set up to liquidate the aftermath of the accident continue working at the site.

The household gas blast hit the fourth floor of the apartment house at 42, Moskvoretskaya Street at 15:45, Moscow time, on Monday. A fire began after the explosion, engulfing 250 square meters. Besides, the blast damaged outside walls between the fourth and the fifth floors and the floor framing between the third and the fourth floors.

A regional police source told Itar-Tass that after the fire 21 flats were unfit for residence. Nine were completely destroyed. The fire was extinguished only at 09:55 Moscow time, on Tuesday.

According to the emergencies ministry, three people were injured, and one of them was hospitalised. Twelve people were evacuated. All in all, 169 people live in that apartment building, and the whereabouts of 165 of them have been established. People stay at their relatives, and some were accommodated at places of temporary accommodation.

The regional authorities say that after emergency work at the site is finished, it will become clear whether the building can be restored.