Fire at Russian factory kills five

A fire at Russia’s largest steel mill killed at least five people, injured eight and left several others missing, an emergency official said today.

The blaze broke out at the OAO Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works plant in the Ural Mountains, some 950 miles east of Moscow, yesterday afternoon and took firefighters more than four hours to control.

Natalia Lukash, a spokeswoman for the federal Emergency Situations Ministry, said rescuers recovered two more bodies today from the debris of a sheet metal rolling workshop, bringing the death toll to at least five.

She said another eight workers were injured, three of them seriously.

Rescuers were searching for an unknown number of others feared trapped or killed.

Investigators were trying to determine what caused the blaze.

The stand-alone mill, known by the nickname Magnitka, is Russia’s largest, with output of nearly 12 million tons per year.