Seventeen deaths in a shopping mall in northern Russia

MOSCOW – An explosion, according to police caused by a gas cylinder, caused 17 deaths and twenty wounded in a shopping center in Ukhta, a town in the autonomous republic of Komi, a region of northern Russia about 1,500 kilometers from Moscow.

“The explosion took place in a two-story brick building,” a spokesman for the Russian Ministry of Civil Protection explained. After the explosion in the ‘Passazh’ shop a vast fire broke out. According to police sources quoted by the Intefax agency, the explosion was caused by a gas cylinder.

July 11 2005