Russian rescuers on Tuesday pulled a baby boy, hurt but alive, from the ruins of an apartment building where he spent the night in sub-zero temperatures after a gas explosion that killed at least nine people.
With dozens of inhabitants still missing, authorities identified the 10-month-old boy as Ivan Fokine and said he had been reunited in hospital with his mother, who also survived the ordeal.
“A New Year’s miracle has occurred,” the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry said in a statement that named the young survivor of Monday’s tragedy in the city of Magnitogorsk, nearly 1,700km east of Moscow in the Ural Mountains.
Photo: Reuters
“The baby’s mother is alive. She has gone to the hospital and recognized her son,” it added.
The boy was taken to hospital in Moscow in an “extremely serious” condition, with severe frostbite to his limbs, a head injury and multiple leg fractures, the Russian Ministry of Health said.
He is to be transferred to a hospital in Moscow for specialized treatment.
Photo: AFP / Russian Emergency Situations Ministry
Fokine was found after rescuers had paused a search for survivors for fear that the rest of the block could come tumbling down.
“The rescuers heard crying,” Chelyabinsk regional governor Boris Dubrovsky wrote on the Telegram messenger service. “The baby was saved by being in a cradle and warmly wrapped up.”
“I went out to have a cigarette at quarter-to-six,” a local man told Russian television. “There was a blast and a wave of fire ... then people started running out.”
Witnesses said the explosion was strong enough to shatter the windows of nearby buildings.
“I woke up and felt myself falling. The walls were gone. My mother was screaming and my son had been buried,” another witness said.
Russian authorities on Tuesday said that no trace of explosives had been found in the rubble so far, as rumors circulated in local media of a possible terror link.
The fears were fueled by a gas explosion in a minibus in Magnitogorsk that killed three people.
No link has been found between the two explosions, authorities said.
Located in a mineral-rich region, Magnitogorsk, with a population of 400,000 people, is home to one of the country’s largest steel producers.
Investigators have opened a criminal probe into the accident, which the FSB security service said was the result of a gas explosion.
Such explosions are relatively common in Russia, where much of the infrastructure dates back to the Soviet era and safety requirements are often ignored.
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