Ten dead in gas blast at Crimean college

MOSCOW: A blast at a college in the Crimean port city of Kerch killed 10 people and injured dozens Wednesday, Russian news agencies reported, citing sources.

“Initial information is that a gas canister blew up,” the TASS news agency quoted an unnamed law enforcement source as saying.

An employee at a hospital in Kerch was quoted as saying that 18 people had already been admitted with injuries from the explosion, and that doctors are expecting around 50 more wounded people to be brought in.

“There are already lots of people in the emergency room, and in the operating theatre,” TASS quoted the employee as saying.

Photographs from the scene of the blast posted by local media outlet Kerch.FM showed ground floor windows of the two- storey building had been blown out, and debris from the building was lying on the floor outside.

Ambulances and firefighters were at the scene. One person could be seen on a stretcher being carried onto a bus. The technical college provides vocational training to teenage pupils.

Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimea region in 2014, prompting international condemnation and Western sanctions. Kerch is the point on the peninsula where a bridge linking Crimea to Russia makes landfall on the Crimean side.

Russian President Vladimir Putin opened the bridge to road traffic in May this year, getting behind the wheel of a truck to drive it across the bridge. — Reuters