IRKUTSK, December 1. /TASS/. Two schoolchildren from Siberia, who received severe frost bites on way back home from school last Saturday when air temperatures dropped to minus 30 degrees Celsius, have been transferred from a local hospital to a Burns Therapy Center in Irkutsk.

Last Saturday three schoolchildren aged 12, 14 and 16 decided to walk home from school because a school bus was late. While the schoolchildren were on the way home air temperatures sharply dropped. The schoolchildren received severe frost bites in the cold, and one of them died. The survivors were brought to a local hospital.

At present, they are staying at an intensive care unit of the Irkutsk Burns Therapy Center. “All possible measures are being taken to help the schoolchildren,” the press center of the regional education ministry said on Monday.

On Sunday regional education minister Yelena Osipova visited the survivors at hospital bed and talked to their parents. She underlined that investigators would check the conduct of the bus service workers responsible for transportation of schoolchildren in a school bus.

A criminal case has been opened into the tragic incident on charges of carelessness which entailed human death.