Rescuers clambered through the ruins of part of a collapsed apartment building looking for survivors yesterday, but hope began to dwindle more than 24 hours after an apparent natural gas explosion tore through the nine-story structure in northern Russia as only more bodies were recovered.
The death toll rose to 42 early yesterday, regional emergency officials said. The Interfax news agency reported that 43 people were killed.
Police searched for two homeless men suspected of triggering the deadly blast by stealing lids from gas pipes to sell for scrap.
The explosion ripped through a prefabricated building in Arkhangelsk, a White Sea port about 960km north of Moscow, before dawn on Tuesday, destroying an entire nine-story section from top to bottom and leaving dozens of people trapped in the rubble. Twenty-four people were rescued, including two children.
Officials gave conflicting accounts of how many people remained missing.
Rescuers worked non-stop through the night, using power saws to cut through piles of building materials as cranes lifted off the biggest beams and panels.
By morning, 41 bodies had been recovered and one woman who had been pulled out alive died overnight in a hospital, said a ministry duty officer in Arkhangelsk.
Authorities were searching for two men spotted by residents where the blast occurred, said Igor Avtushko, spokesman for the regional Interior Ministry. The men allegedly were carrying metal pipes and instruments, and police believed they opened the gas valves to steal the bronze lids that seal them.
Avtushko said authorities found lids missing in two neighboring buildings, but that crews were able to fix the gas leaks in time. NTV television said building residents had reported the smell of gas to the local emergency officials before the explosion, but that its workers didn't come until the blast occurred.
Andrei Seleznyov, 52, a resident of a neighboring building, said the homeless men had been systematically stealing the lids.
"These damned vagabonds unscrewed these valves a hundred times in the past, but then it didn't lead to explosions," Seleznyov said.
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