Moscow - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev called Thursday for criminal proceedings to be launched in connection with a fire at a retirement home last weekend that left 23 people dead.
"This retirement home did not legally exist. It was a phantom where people lived and perished. Investigators should launch criminal proceedings against all those responsible," Medvedev said at a meeting dedicated to the tragedy.
The remains of 23 people were found after the fire on Saturday gutted a wooden retirement home in the country's remote northwestern republic of Komi.
"This tragedy would not have happened if it had not been for an extremely cynical and immoral attitude with regard to those living in the retirement homes," Medvedev said.
The blaze in the town of Podyelsk follows similar incidents across Russia, highlighting lax enforcement of fire safety regulations and inadequate Soviet-era infrastructure.
Local officials said there was no evidence of criminal activity and that the building's wiring had been "in full accordance with technical norms" with an alarm that had gone off when the fire started.
Medvedev demanded that all Russia's retirement homes be inspected, saying that 40 percent of establishments did not have automatic fire alarms and "could burn down in similar circumstances."
More than 60 patients and staff died in a fire at a retirement home in the southern region of Krasnodar in 2007, while over 30 people died in another blaze at an old people's home in near Tula just south of Moscow the same year. - AFP