According to press reports, at least 35 people were murdered and 66 were hospitalized in Dagestan, although there were no initial indications of foul play or a connection to the Ukrainian war.
Authorities announced Tuesday that a fire and explosion at a gas station in southern Russia killed at least 35 people, in a calamity that rocked one of the country’s poorest regions.
There were no initial reports of foul play or a link to the Ukraine conflict.
According to Russian official media, an explosion at a petrol station in Makhachkala, the capital of the Dagestan province on the Caspian Sea and at the foothills of the Caucasus Mountains, was caused by a fire in a neighboring structure on Monday evening. According to local officials, 63 more individuals were hospitalized.
Witnesses interviewed by Russian news outlets claimed a massive explosion. “I was at home, lying on the couch,” one woman claimed in a video interview broadcast by the state-run news agency Tass. “I don’t know how I ended up on the floor.”
President Vladimir V. Putin issued a brief message of sympathy, while the governor of Dagestan, Sergei Melikov, announced a day of mourning and vowed to give one million rubles — roughly $10,000 — to each of the deceased’s families.