A fire at a nursing home in Russia killed at least 10 people today.
Rescuers evacuated more than 300 patients from the nursing home in the Omsk region after the fire erupted early in the morning.
An Emergency Situations Ministry spokesman said the hospital fire alarm system work properly but that a nurse on duty was away at the moment and failed to immediately alert the patients and call firefighters.
He said the fire apparently had been caused by a violation of fire safety rules by patients, many of whom were drunk after a party the previous night.
Fatal fires at schools, hospitals and other state-run facilities in recent years have revealed official negligence and rampant violations of fire safety rules.
A fire in a nursing in the Azov Sea coast village of Kamyshevatskaya in southern Russia killed 62 people in March. A night watchman ignored two fire alarms before reporting the blaze.