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More than 7,000 people killed in fires in Russia last year

Among the victims are 458 children

MOSCOW, April 10. /TASS/. More than 7,000 people were killed in Russia in fires last year, the press service of the Russian Investigative Committee told TASS after analyzing human deaths in fires.

"The bodies of the Russian Investigative Committee received 6,286 reports of human deaths in fires in 2018. A total of 7,296 people were killed," the Investigative Committee reported.

The highest number of blazes that entailed human deaths occurred in the Moscow Region (205 fires, 219 people killed), Sverdlovsk Region (202 fires, 245 people killed), Perm Region (199 fires, 238 people killed), Krasnoyarsk Region (182 fires, 189 people killed), Chelyabinsk Region (162 fires, 183 people killed), Leningrad Region (156 fires, 178 people killed), Nizhny Novgorod Region (155 fires, 165 people killed. More than 100 blazes with human deaths occurred in the Voronezh, Rostov, Irkutsk, Kemerovo, Novosibirsk, Tver, Volgograd, Kirov, Samara and Saratov Regions, as well as in some other regions.

The Investigative Committee expressed serious concerns over the children’s deaths, including in large families. In 2018, 458 minors were killed, and 359 minors died in fires in 2017.

"Pre-investigation checks were carried out for all cases. A decision was made not to launch criminal cases for 5,468 reports, and for 496 reports criminal cases were launched under Sections 109, 216 and 219 of the Russian Criminal Code ("Infliction of death by negligence," "Violation of safety rules during construction or other work", "Violation of fire safety rules")," the Investigative Committee said.