Moscow dormitory fire kills 36 foreign students

A FIRE ripped through a Moscow dormitory crowded with newly arrived foreign students early yesterday, killing at least 36 people and injuring 127 others many of them forced to jump from the five-storey building because the exits were blocked.

The fire quickly engulfed most of the dilapidated building housing students of the Patrice Lumumba Friendship of Peoples University, said Emergency Situations Ministry spokesman Viktor Beltsov. The building served as a quarantine facility for newly arrived foreign students needing medical checks before starting their studies.

"It was like a horrible nightmare," said Abdallah Bong, a student from Chad, looking at the gutted building. "We saw them crying for help and jumping out of the windows, and we could do nothing to save them."