Families feared dead after gas blast flats ‘fall like house of cards’

SEVEN children are believed to be among up to 40 people feared dead following a New Year’s Eve gas explosion in a Russian apartment block.

The 48 flats, home to 110 people, fell “like a house of cards” as a fireball ripped apart an upper floor.

Yesterday President Vladimir Putin flew to the grief-stricken city of Magnitogorsk in the Urals as four people were confirmed dead and dozens more missing.

Last night the region’s governor, Boris Dubrovsky, revealed that seven of three dozen dead believed to be still under the rubble are children.

He said: “Now we are working with the following figure – it is 35 people we don’t know where they are now. Unfortunately, seven of them are children.”

Mikhail Scherbakov, head doctor of the city’s hospital, said there was little hope of anyone else coming out alive.

He said: “The critical time for medical help has ended. So we do not think that anyone alive will now be brought to us.” Interrupting his New Year vacation, President Putin met with survivors in hospital.

Later, Mr Putin called on Russians marking the country’s New Year holiday to think about the victims of the tragedy. He said: “We need to remember those who died and suffered, in our hearts, because this is in the nature of our people.”