House fire in Siberian village kills eleven, injures two

Eleven people died and two others were injured in a house fire in a village in Siberia’s Tomsk Region, a source in local emergencies services told TASS on Tuesday.

"According to update, fourteen people were living there, two of them rescued themselves and eleven others died, while the fate of one more person is unknown," the source said. The fire has been fully extinguished.

Ten of those killed in the fire were nationals of Uzbekistan, who worked for a timber company, a source in the Central Asian republic’s Emergencies Ministry told TASS. Consultations will begin soon on repatriating their bodies.

Fire in the village of Prichulymsky was reported at around midnight. The blaze in the one-storey wooden house covered the area of 208 square meters. A criminal case has been opened into the incident.

The preliminary cause of fire is the malfunction of electrical equipment, a source in regional law enforcement agencies told TASS, noting that the Uzbek nationals had used electric heaters.