Moscow - Five people, including one child,
were killed in the Russian city of Perm on Monday when a hot
water pipe exploded in the night and flooded a basement hotel
room with boiling water.
At least three other people were taken to hospital with
burns after the incident in the Mini Hotel Caramel, which is
located in the basement of a residential building, the region's
investigative committee said.
A doctor treating the victims, Andrei Babikov, said a
33-year-old woman had burns covering 35% of her body. Two men
aged 28 and 35 were in a less serious condition.
Regional governor Maxim Reshetnikov said it was a "terrible
accident".
"We will conduct the necessary checks with law enforcement
and monitoring services," he said on Instagram. "Special thanks
go to the rescue workers, who themselves received burns in
pulling people out."
Video posted on social media showed thick steam billowing
out of the hotel's entrance in the early hours of Monday
morning, with emergency services in attendance.
%%%twitter https://twitter.com/hashtag/BREAKING?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#BREAKING #Russia In #Perm, five people died in a hotel "Caramel" due to a break in a hot water pipe, three more were hospitalized with burns. The hotel is located on the ground floor of the building. pic.twitter.com/4wYMPEHDY0
— Kapil Patil (@Kapil_Patils)
Investigators opened a criminal investigation to establish
whether the deaths resulted from negligence.
The RIA news agency reported that the heating pipe that
exploded had been in operation since 1962 and had broken
repeatedly in the past, citing a source in the Perm emergency
services.
"There were no victims in previous explosions," the source
said. "It was not replaced, only repaired."