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Cigarette butt might have caused fire at mental hospital in Tula region

The two men who died of suffocation were bed patients. They were trapped in a ward on the ground floor, where the fire started

TULA, December 18 (Itar-Tass) —— The fire at a mental hospital in Russia’s Tula region that claimed two human lives might have been caused by a cigarette butt, a spokesman for the regional police department told Itar-Tass on Tuesday.

According to earlier reports, two people died in the fire at the Belev mental hospital. As many as 321 people, patients and employees, were evacuated.

The two men who died of suffocation were bed patients. They were trapped in a ward on the ground floor, where the fire started. The rest returned to the building after the fire had been extinguished.

Five years ago, a fire in a home of the aged in the settlement of Velye-Nikolskoy, Tula region, claimed the lives of 34 people. Eight more received injuries.

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