Toll Rises to 46 in Moscow Drug Rehab Hospital Fire

A woman died Monday from burns suffered in a weekend blaze at a Moscow hospital, a city health official said, bringing to 46 the death toll from the Russian capital’s deadliest fire in decades, The Associated Press reported.

The 25-year-old woman had been in extremely serious condition since the fire, which broke out in the early morning hours of Saturday, said Lyubov Zhomova, a spokeswoman for the Moscow city medical directorate.

Nine people were still hospitalized Monday as officials continued investigating the circumstances behind the fire at the five-story hospital and drug rehabilitation clinic.

Patients blamed tight security measures —- meant to keep patients in —- for the high death toll. The blaze erupted in a wooden cabinet in a kitchen at one end of a second-floor corridor.

Russian fire inspectors said the main exit was blocked by a locked gate that staff members could not open in time, and the only other way out was cut off by smoke.

Inspectors who visited the hospital in February and March had recommended its temporary closure because of safety violations.

Russia records about 18,000 fire deaths a year — roughly 10 times the rate in the United States.

Experts say fire fatalities have soared since the collapse of the Soviet Union because of lax enforcement of safety standards.

It was the deadliest fire in Moscow since a 1977 blaze at the massive Rossiya Hotel near the Kremlin — torn down this year — in which the official death toll of 42 has been questioned.

Emergency response officials ordered all health facilities in the city inspected for fire safety compliance, Russian agencies reported.

In November 2003, a pre-dawn fire swept though a dormitory for foreign students who had been quarantined for medical checks, killing 43 and injuring nearly 200. Many were trapped behind permanently locked exits, causing some to leap from the five-story building.

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