35 killed in southern Russia's gas station explosion

The death toll from a gas station explosion in Russia's Republic of Dagestan rose to 35, including three children, Russia's Emergencies Ministry said on Tuesday, reported Xinhua.

Local media reported that search and rescue efforts were ongoing as of Tuesday morning, with emergency workers clearing the rubble and searching for potential survivors.

A video released by the ministry showed firefighters trying to extinguish flames near burnt-out vehicles as rescue workers examined the rubble of a building with flashlights.

Citing data from the Federal Disaster Medicine Center, the ministry also said that 115 people were affected by the incident, and the fire had spread over roughly 600 square meters.

Noting that around 260 firefighters were deployed, the ministry sent a special aircraft to evacuate the injured to Moscow hospitals.

Makhachkala, a city of over 600,000 residents on the Caspian Sea, is the capital of Dagestan, a Russian republic bordering Chechnya.

On Monday evening, an auto repair shop on the outskirts of Makhachkala caught fire, spreading to a nearby gas station and resulting in an explosion, possibly caused by storing agrochemicals with flammable characteristics.

The blast was heard shortly before 10:00 p.m. local time (1900 GMT), Sergei Melikov, head of the Dagestan regional administration, said on Telegram.

The explosion in Makhachkala was the deadliest in Russia since April 2022, when a fire at a defense research facility in Tver, a city 100 miles north of Moscow, killed 22 people and injured a dozen more.

Dagestan's authorities said that families of the dead would receive 1 million rubles (about 10,324 U.S. dollars) each and the injured between 200,000 and 400,000 rubles.

The Russian Investigative Committee is investigating the explosion and has initiated a criminal case concerning the incident. Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed his condolences to the victims' family members. A day of mourning has been declared in the Dagestan Region.