Putin wants answers after three Russian tragedies

Putin wants answers after three Russian tragedies

20th March 2007

MOSCOW, 20 March (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin ordered on Tuesday a special Kremlin inquiry into the three tragedies to hit Russia since the weekend, as he sought to show leadership in a moment of national grief.

A plane crash, mine disaster and retirement home fire have claimed nearly 200 lives at three separate locations across the country in a matter of days, highlighting the country's lax safety standards and strained emergency services. Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov will lead the high-level probe into the incidents and see if any lessons can be drawn from them.

"You have to do your best to investigate the reasons at the highest level ... and to draw corresponding conclusions," said Putin, speaking at a military commission meeting where a minute's silence was held for those who died in the disasters.

Putin has been criticised for being slow to issue a public response to past tragedies, including the 2000 Kursk submarine sinking in which 118 sailors died and the 2004 Beslan school siege that killed more than 300 people. But he was quick to show empathy with the victims of the latest accidents. "The information about this terrible tragedy at the Ulyanovskaya pit echoes in the hearts of Russians with pain," said Putin in a message of condolence.

The president also expressed his pain at the death of the elderly people, promising an examination of the anti-fire protection systems in the building. The role of the emergency services has already been raised in relation to the crash of an ageing commercial jet in Samara at the weekend. Although just six of the 57 people on board perished, survivors told of being strapped upside down in the wreckage for 20 minutes before they were rescued.

VICTIMS SUFFOCATED

Although emergency teams were quick to the site of the mine accident in the Kemerovo region of Siberia, it was too late to help at least 106 miners, managers and a visiting British geologist who died in the methane explosion deep under ground.

The regional prosecutor's office there has already opened its own inquiry, suspecting breaches of mining rules were to blame for the tragedy in one of the country's most modern coal mines.

In the third incident, 62 residents and staff at a retirement home died in a fire in a remote village in the South of the country in the Krasnodar region, mostly from suffocation. It took nearly an hour for emergency services to reach the scene, more than 50 km (30 miles) from the nearest large town. In the first of the sudden spate of accidents, a 30-year-old Tu-134 flipped as it landed in heavy fog on Saturday.

Six passengers were killed when the fuselage broke apart. Survivors claimed it was a miracle more did not die. They also complained that they had to free themselves from the wreckage.

The carrier, Utair, blamed poor weather for the crash, although Russian media have reported that the crew had earlier warned of problems with the plane's avionics. The model is being phased out of service.

At the Ulyanovskaya Mine in Western Siberia, the dangerous state of the tunnels, nearly 300 metres underground, continued to hamper efforts to find more survivors from Monday's blast.

There have been at least 10 serious accidents at Russia's mines in the past decade, but the latest incident was the worst since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991.

In the last of the incidents, locked emergency exits were blamed for causing many of the 62 deaths at a remote state-run old people's home. Staff had also been slow to contact emergency services, which further delayed their reaction in reaching the scene in the Kuban region in the south of the country.