Fire kills 21 Russian students

VLADIVOSTOK, Russia -- A fire engulfed an old wooden school in the northern Siberian republic of Yakutia on Monday, killing 21 students and a teacher, emergency officials said.\nTen more students were hospitalized with burns and fractured bones after they tried to escape the flames by jumping out the windows of the two-story building, said Yelena Mineyeva, spokeswoman for Yakutia's Emergency Situations Ministry. The students were between the ages of 11 and 18.\nRussian President Vladimir Putin called the fire a "major calamity" and ordered the federal government to fully cooperate with authorities in Yakutia, about 3,000 miles east of Moscow.\nIn televised comments, Putin instructed his Cabinet to "provide help to the republic and immediately to the families of the victims."\nThe fire erupted at the beginning of the school day in a rural school in the village of Sydybal, said Viktor Beltsov, a spokesman for the Emergency Situations Ministry in Moscow.\nThe village does not have a fire department, so fire trucks had to travel to the scene from a station 12 miles away. By the time they arrived, the 1927-era building was engulfed in flames, Mineyeva said.\nThe chief prosecutor's office in Yakutia opened a criminal investigation into the fire deaths, which is common in such cases.\nIn rural Russian villages, most buildings are made of wood and depend on heat from stoves. Safety standards are sometimes disregarded as people try desperately to keep warm during frigid winters.\nSince the breakup of the Soviet Union, Russia has racked up some of the world's grimmest fire statistics. Fifty people a day die in fires. Most of the fires are caused by people smoking while drinking or being careless.\nRussia's fire death toll is 4 1/2 times greater than in the United States, which has twice the population, and 12 1/2 times greater than in the United Kingdom.