A nursing home for the elderly in the Siberian city of Kemerovo has been hit by a fire that killed at least 22 people, Russian emergency services said.
The fire destroyed the entire second floor of the building, which was not officially registered as a nursing home, Russian news agency RIA Novosti and fire protection officials said on Saturday.
It broke out on Friday in the two-story wooden building in Kemerovo, about 3,000 kilometers (1,900 miles) east of the capital Moscow. A few hours later, the fire was brought under control.
The cause of the fire was not immediately established, according to the Tass news agency, but the building was heated with stoves.
It was not clear how many people lived in the privately owned facility or how many were in the building when the fire broke out.
According to official figures, many old people’s homes throughout Russia are operated without registration and could not be subject to inspection, as they were officially considered private property.
However, Tass reported that the region’s governor had announced that all facilities of this type would be inspected following the fire.
“We will review all facilities of this type, mostly private ones. The inspections will be completed within a week,” he wrote on his Telegram channel.
In 2018, a fire in a shopping center in Kemerovo killed 64 people.