Second Russian hospital hit by fatal fire

Story Highlights

• Fire at a Moscow drug treatment hospital kills 45 women
• Russia's chief fire inspector believes the fire was caused by arson
• Locked doors and windows prevented the victims from escaping
• NEW: Fire at a hospital in Siberia kills 8 people

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MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) -- A fire at a mental health hospital in Siberia killed eight people a day after a fire at a Moscow drug treatment facility killed 45 women, Russian media reported.

The fire Saturday in Taiga, Siberia, also injured six people, according to media reports. It began Saturday at 9:32 p.m. Moscow time (1:32 p.m. ET) -- less than 24 hours after the fire at the No. 17 rehabilitation center in Moscow.

Media reports said 235 people were inside the two-story building in Siberia, including seven staff members, but most were evacuated safely. The cause of the fire was not immediately known.

The fire at the Moscow drug treatment center broke out about 2 a.m. Saturday (6 p.m. Friday ET). Media reports said 214 people were evacuated from the burning building.

Fire officials told CNN affiliate CTV they suspect arson. They said they previously had taken the hospital to court over its fire safety, and the court issued a warning, CTV said.

The fire officials told CTV the hospital's staff did not call the fire department fast enough and did not do enough to evacuate patients. The officials said windows and one of the building's fire exits were blocked by metal grills and another exit was hidden by smoke.

The barred windows were shut with locks that hospital personnel, who had the keys, apparently did not have time to open, The Associated Press reported. (Watch firefighters pick through smoke-blackened debris inside the ward that became a death trap )

It was the deadliest fire in the Russian capital in decades.

Russia's chief fire inspector, Yuri Nenashev, said he was "90 percent certain" the fire was set deliberately, and Mayor Yuri Luzhkov said it appeared to be arson or extremely careless handling of flammable materials, AP reported.

The fire erupted in a wooden cabinet in a kitchen at one end of a corridor on the hospital's second floor -- a factor that led to suspicions of arson, according to AP.

Most victims killed by smoke

All 45 women were dead by the time firefighters arrived, Alexander Chupriyan, the deputy emergency situations minister, told AP.

"Judging by the placement of the bodies, they really tried to get out," he said.

Televised footage showed the ravaged, peeling walls of a corridor and black ash covering beds and belongings -- a teacup, some buns for a snack -- in a room that appeared otherwise undamaged. NTV showed a soot-covered survivor sitting outside the building next to the sprawled figures of two women who appeared dead or unconscious.

Moscow fire department spokesman Yevgeny Bobylyov said that investigators were still working at the site but that it was already clear that the first call to the fire department -- around 1:30 a.m. had come far too long after the fire started.

"Secondly, the hospital personnel worked very badly, they did not take steps to evacuate people in the early stages of the fire," he said.

One-hundred-sixty people were evacuated from the five-story building, and 10 people were hospitalized with carbon monoxide poisoning, Bobylyov said. Firefighters put out the fire within an hour of the first call for help, he said.

Most victims died of asphyxiation, Bobylyov said; some died of burns, said Moscow city prosecutor Yuri Syomin. Russian media reported that two hospital staff members were among the dead.

A psychologist at the hospital, Olga Rudakova, told NTV television many of the women there are HIV-infected drug addicts, and NTV reported that most of the victims were under 35 -- some committed by relatives.

The ITAR-Tass news agency said that the area of the fire was comparatively small, some 1,075 square feet, but that the heavy concentration of smoke killed people. Ekho Moskvy radio said burning plastic wall coverings worsened the thick, toxic smoke.

The fire might have started in a pile of discarded materials, Syomin said.

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