Russian mental hospital fire kills 23

A fire swept through a Russian facilityfor people with mental illnesses, killing 23 patients and injuring another 23, emergency services said Sunday.

The remaining 24 patients were safely evacuated, including some who had to be carried out of the building, and the four medical personnel working at the institutionwere unhurt, they said.

Similar fires at two other institutions for psychiatric patients in Russia took the lives of 75 people in 2013, leading to calls for stricter enforcement of fire safety standards.

Investigators have not yet determined the cause of this weekend's fire, which broke out late Saturday in Alferovka, a village in the Voronezh region about 600 kilometres south of Moscow. The fire in the one-storey brick building was extinguished shortly after 3 a.m. local timeSunday.

The fire started in a section of the home dedicated to patients who were unable to walk, emergency services official Igor Kobzev said on Russian state television. He said 39 of the patients in the home could not walk.

All of the patients at the Novokhopersky Neuropsychiatric Home were men and those who died were aged between 46 and 78, according to a list released by the emergency services. Those who were evacuated were placed in a nearby home for elderly and disabled people.

Russia has a poor fire safety record with about 12,000 fire deaths reported in 2012. By comparison, the U.S., with a population roughly double Russia's, recorded around 3,000 fire deaths in 2011.