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.
Four people jailed in the landmark Hong Kong national security trial of "47 democrats" accused of conspiracy to commit subversion were freed today after more than four years behind bars, the second group to be released in a month. Among those freed was long-time political and LGBTQ activist Jimmy Sham (岑子杰), who also led one of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy groups, the Civil Human Rights Front, which disbanded in 2021. "Let me spend some time with my family," Sham said after arriving at his home in the Kowloon district of Jordan. "I don’t know how to plan ahead because, to me, it feels
Polish presidential candidates offered different visions of Poland and its relations with Ukraine in a televised debate ahead of next week’s run-off, which remains on a knife-edge. During a head-to-head debate lasting two hours, centrist Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, from Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s governing pro-European coalition, faced the Eurosceptic historian Karol Nawrocki, backed by the right-wing populist Law and Justice party (PiS). The two candidates, who qualified for the second round after coming in the top two places in the first vote on Sunday last week, clashed over Poland’s relations with Ukraine, EU policy and the track records of their
‘A THREAT’: Guyanese President Irfan Ali called on Venezuela to follow international court rulings over the region, whose border Guyana says was ratified back in 1899 Misael Zapara said he would vote in Venezuela’s first elections yesterday for the territory of Essequibo, despite living more than 100km away from the oil-rich Guyana-administered region. Both countries lay claim to Essequibo, which makes up two-thirds of Guyana’s territory and is home to 125,000 of its 800,000 citizens. Guyana has administered the region for decades. The centuries-old dispute has intensified since ExxonMobil discovered massive offshore oil deposits a decade ago, giving Guyana the largest crude oil reserves per capita in the world. Venezuela would elect a governor, eight National Assembly deputies and regional councilors in a newly created constituency for the 160,000
North Korea has detained another official over last week’s failed launch of a warship, which damaged the naval destroyer, state media reported yesterday. Pyongyang announced “a serious accident” at Wednesday last week’s launch ceremony, which crushed sections of the bottom of the new destroyer. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called the mishap a “criminal act caused by absolute carelessness.” Ri Hyong-son, vice department director of the Munitions Industry Department of the Party Central Committee, was summoned and detained on Sunday, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. He was “greatly responsible for the occurrence of the serious accident,” it said. Ri is the fourth person
RSS