MOSCOW, Jan 1 — Russian rescuers today pulled a baby girl alive from the ruins of an apartment block that collapsed in a gas explosion more than a day earlier, amid freezing temperatures.
“The rescuers heard crying. The baby was saved by being in a cradle and warmly wrapped up,” Chelyabinsk regional governor Boris Dubrovsky wrote on his Telegram channel.
The baby girl, aged 11 months, was taken to hospital and is now being checked for fractures, a medic at the hospital where she is being treated told TASS news agency.
“The little girl is conscious. The prognosis is positive.”
Part of the 10-storey apartment building collapsed following a gas explosion yesterday morning in the industrial city of Magnitogorsk, nearly 1,700km east of Moscow in the Ural mountains.
The baby was found after rescuers were forced to temporarily halt the search for dozens of missing people in the rubble for fear the rest of the block could come down.
The child survived temperatures that fell overnight to around minus 27°, TASS reported.
So far the incident has claimed at least seven lives and only six survivors have been found, including a 13-year-old boy. — AFP
