Explosion kills 44 in Russia

Monday, Nov. 18, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

The cause of the blast was under investigation. Officials have said one or more bombs may have been planted in the basement.

"The investigation must be carried out as quickly as possible to find out whether it was a terrorist act or a tragic accident," Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin said after visiting the site Sunday, according to the ITAR-Tass news agency.

The explosion destroyed at least 41 apartments in the building at Kaspyisk, on the shores of the Caspian Sea in the southern Russian republic of Dagestan, neighboring Chechnya.

The 44 dead include 15 children, said Marina Ryklina, spokeswoman for Russia's Emergency Situations Ministry. Twelve to 18 people remained under the rubble, she said.

News reports have said at least eight people were hospitalized, while more more than 30 survived unhurt.

The building had housed more than 130 people, most of them Border Guard officers and their families.

Russian news agencies have cited authorities as speculating that the predawn explosion Saturday could have been revenge by organized crime because of a crackdown on caviar and sturgeon poaching in the Caspian, or by smugglers of drugs and weapons from neighboring Azerbaijan.

"Witnesses heard two explosions before the building collapsed," Maj. Gen. Vsevolod Chernov, military prosecutor for the Caucasian Military District, told the Interfax news agency.

President Boris Yeltsin sent condolences. "I took the news hard," Yeltsin's message said, according to ITAR-Tass.