Baby rescued from Russia building rubble

‘New Year’s miracle’ as search team saves trapped boy nearly 36 hours after disaster

They stopped all the equipment. He began to cry louder.”

Pyotr Gritsenko, a rescue worker who said the discovery came after one of the searchers heard faint cries

An 11-month-old boy survived a 36-hour ordeal in the extreme cold, trapped in a collapsed building in southwestern Russia, before he was rescued on Tuesday.

The boy’s father called it “a New Year’s miracle’’.

The 10-story residential building in Magnitogorsk, a city in Russia’s Urals region, collapsed before dawn on Monday, claiming the lives of at least 21 people. Officials said 20 others who lived there had not yet been accounted for.

The collapse followed an explosion that was believed to have been caused by a gas leak, Associated Press reported.

On Tuesday, to everyone’s delight and surprise, rescuers pulled Ivan Fokin out of the rubble alive, nearly 36 hours after the disaster that blew apart his home.

According to Tass News Agency, Ivan was in an extremely serious condition, with fractures, a head injury and suffering from hypothermia and frostbite after his ordeal in temperatures of around minus 20 degrees Celsius.

He was flown to Moscow late on Tuesday by a special plane from Russia’s Federal Medical and Biological Agency to give him specialist care. The plane landed at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport where an emergency medical service vehicle was waiting for him.

He was reported to be in a stable condition on arrival in the capital, the head of the national public health institute Vladimir Uiba said.

The boy’s father was at work when his wife phoned to say the building had collapsed. She escaped with a 3-year-old son, Russian news reports said.

“I was sleeping on the couch with my elder son, hugging him and the young one was sleeping in his baby bed,” mother Olga Fokina said on Russian TV Channel 1. “I and the older child fell down and quickly escaped.’’ She said she had been frantically trying to find out what had happened to her other child.

Rescue worker Pyotr Gritsenko said that Ivan’s discovery came after one of the searchers heard cries.

“They stopped all the equipment. He began to cry louder,” but the crew, initially, couldn’t locate him, he said. A search dog was brought in and confirmed that someone was under the rubble.

The father said he helped rescuers dig in the rubble and “showed them a place where he approximately could be’’.

Regional governor Boris Dubrovsky was quoted as saying by Interfax news agency that Ivan apparently had been protected by being in a crib that deflected the falling rubble and being wrapped warmly.

The rescue operation, aided by powerful heaters and lights, was continuing overnight into Wednesday in the city about 1,400 kilometers southeast of Moscow.

Russian President Vladimir Putin visited the accident site on Monday and went to a local hospital, where he spoke to a 13-year old-boy who had head injuries and frostbite after spending an hour under the rubble, Associated Press reported.

President Xi Jinping expressed condolences to Putin on Wednesday.

In telephone talks with officers of the Emergencies Ministry, Putin thanked all the rescuers for their selfless work.