SOCHI, July 2 (RIA Novosti) - At least two people died in an explosion Wednesday believed to have been caused by household gas, in an apartment block in Russia's Black Sea resort of Sochi, a police spokesman said.
The blast, which killed a man and a 14 year-old child, occurred early in the morning on the first floor of a 12-story residential building. It completely destroyed the staircase and ceilings on the first three stories.
A total of 21 rescuers were working at the scene.
City Mayor Vladimir Afanasenkov told reporters that 11 people had been given medical aid, and that one was being treated in hospital. He said the city authorities will allocate 10 million rubles ($426,100) for dwellers of the building affected by the blast.
Police said liquefied petroleum gas cylinders may have detonated in the building.
"Residents of the building were secretly using liquefied gas," a spokesman said. Several cylinders have been found in the debris, he added.
Forensic experts were working at the scene to establish the cause of the explosion.
The explosion took place on the outskirts of Sochi, several kilometers from the border with Abkhazia, but the governor of the Krasnodar Territory, Alexander Tkachev, said Wednesday it was not connected with recent explosions in the breakaway Georgian republic.
In two sets of explosions in the breakaway province on Sunday and Monday, 12 people were injured. Abkhaz authorities blamed both incidents on Georgian security forces; Tbilisi dismissed the accusations as absurd.
Tkachev said one of the most likely causes of the Sochi incident was a gas explosion.
But the Russian industrial safety regulator Rostekhnadzor said the possibility that a gas canister exploded had been ruled out, as the canister which was at the blast epicenter was filled with gas and undamaged.
