Nine dead, 480 rescued from burning retirement home in Russia

A fire at a retirement home northwest of Moscow killed 9 people early Monday morning, Russian state media said.

Firefighters rescued 480 others from the building, the RIA-Novosti news agency reported.

The fire broke out at a home in the Tver region. The victims all suffocated to death, a spokeswoman for the regional emergencies
service told the news agency.

Officials do not yet know the cause of the fire.

Russia has seen several deadly blazes in elderly care homes in recent years.

In January 2009, 23 people died in a fire that destroyed a care home in the Komi republic in the northwestern part of the country.
And in March 2007, 63 people died in a retirement home fire in the Krasnodar region in southern Russia, RIA-Novosti said.