23 Killed at Ukraine Apartment Block Blast

YEVPATORIA-A suspected gas explosion devastated a five-storey apartment building in southern Ukraine, killing 22 people and leaving more than 20 still unaccounted. The blast Wednesday night, probably caused by Canisters of oxygen stored in the basement, left several meters high rubble that was strewn with wires, Smash furniture. Television footage showed rescue workers dragging out a man from underneath a heavy slab. AFP Told A further 21 people have been Rescued from the rubble, five of whom were now being treated in the hospital, an official from the ministry for emergency situations.

"Search efforts are continuing,"one said. Russians make up more than half the population of Crimea, an autonomous region which used to belong to Russia. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev offered condolences to relatives of the dead. Rescue workers had pulled out 16 people alive from the shattered five-storey block in Yevpatoria in Ukraine's Crimea peninsula. An explosion caused by gas almost certainly struck an apartment building in southern Ukraine on Wednesday.

One blast in October 2007 killed 15 residents in Ukraine's central city of Dnipropetrovsk. Ukraine's Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko talks to people as she visits the shattered five-storey block in the Black Sea resort of Yevpatoria in the Crimea peninsula on December 25,2008. particularly in winter when residents use more heating. Casualties caused by gas blasts in often crumbling apartment buildings are common occurrences in former Soviet republics.
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Ukraine Apartment Block Blast Video (You Tube)