21 dead and 20 missing so far
The bodies of 21 people, including two children, have been recovered so far, according to a report released by the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations.
Faced with extreme cold and temperatures of up to 27 degrees below zero, rescue efforts continue today in the ruins of an apartment building in the Russian Urals, which killed at least 21 people due to a gas leak and an explosion that followed.
Six people, including two children, have been rescued while the fate of 20 people is still unknown.
"Work continues on the ground," the ministry said in a statement.
A section of a nine-storey apartment building collapsed in an explosion early Monday morning in Magnitogorsk, an industrial town in the Chelyabinsk region about 1.700 kilometers east of Moscow in the Urals.
Nearly 1.100 people lived in this concrete building that was built in 1973, during the USSR, and had 35 apartments.
Rescuers pulled a live baby from the wreckage yesterday, Tuesday. Television images showed him in a hospital bed with his mother next to him.
Health officials in Moscow said he was in serious but stable condition and was suffering from frostbite, as well as a skull injury and fractures.
The governor of the region declared today a day of mourning.
The Russian Investigative Committee, the body that conducts the main police investigations in the country, announced last night that no trace of explosives or their components was found in the wreckage that has already been examined, while some local media spread rumors that the explosion was due to attack.
The rumors intensified after another explosion last night on a small bus, also in Magnitogorsk, which claimed the lives of three people, according to local authorities.
Authorities made no connection between the two episodes.