18 dead, 80 injured in college fire (updated story)

NEWS.com.au ^ | November 24, 2003 | The Associated Press

[yonif]

A FIRE broke out at a university dormitory in Moscow early today, killing 18 foreign students and injuring some 80 other people as residents of the five-story building jumped from windows to escape the smoke and flames, the Interfax news agency reported.

The blaze was burning on the second, third and fourth floors of a dormitory belonging to the Patrice Lumumba Friendship of Peoples University, where many foreigners study, a duty officer at the Moscow fire department said. She said there were dead and injured but could not confirm the number or nationality of the victims.

Firefighters found the bodies of foreign students at the site of the blaze in southwestern Moscow, Interfax reported. Citing a foreign students' union, it said the dead and injured included citizens of China, Bangladesh, Vietnam and several African countries.

Interfax reported that firefighters used ladders to evacuate students, but that some residents broke limbs or suffered head and neck injuries when they jumped from windows, while others suffered from smoke inhalation. It said the fire was extinguished before dawn, about three hours after the alarm was sounded.

The university, named for a Congolese revolutionary, was founded by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in 1960. Once a showcase where students from Third World nations received subsidized educations with a strict Marxist curriculum, the university declined as the Soviet Union collapsed and its buildings became run-down.

[aynrandfreak]

This is the same university where Carlos the Jackal was indoctrinated to hate America.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1025274/posts

[yonif]

Reports say 28 students were killed.

[Cicero]

Patrice Lumumba university. Headquarters for Soviet manipulation of the third world, where third-world revolutionaries were trained to go back and wreck their own countries.

Patrice Lumumba was a pretty bad actor himself. You'd think they would change the name of the place to something a bit nicer.

[Verginius Rufus]

Laurent Kabila University?

[Democratshavenobrains]

Bush's Fault!!!

[fourdeuce82d]

No evidence yet that this was still that sort of place. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt, and feel sorry for them, and there families.

[yonif]

Fire kills 28 at Moscow dormitory housing foreign students; 78 injured


Updated at 0:25 on November 24, 2003, EST.


MOSCOW (AP) - A fire roared through a Moscow dormitory housing foreign students early Monday, killing at least 28 people and injuring 78 others, the government said.


The fire engulfed part of a five-storey dormitory belonging to the Patrice Lumumba Friendship of Peoples University, where many foreigners study, the Emergency Situations Ministry said. Television footage showed flames consuming several rooms on the second, third and fourth floors of the building. Smoke poured from some windows as a wet snow fell in the predawn darkness.

The Interfax news agency reported earlier that 18 people were killed, all of them foreigners. Citing a foreign students union, it said the dead and injured included citizens of China, Bangladesh, Vietnam and several African countries.

The fire was extinguished at about 5:30 a.m., about three hours after the alarm sounded, authorities said. There was no immediate word of the cause, but Echo of Moscow radio said authorities were investigating many possibilities, including arson.

The injuries included burns and smoke inhalation, said Emergency Situations Ministry spokesman Viktor Beltsov. Interfax said some people suffered broken limbs and head and neck injuries when they jumped from windows to escape the smoke and flames.

The university, named for a Congolese revolutionary and prime minister, was founded by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in 1960. It was once a showcase where students from Third World nations received subsidized education with a strict Marxist curriculum.

The university declined as the Soviet Union collapsed, and its buildings have become rundown.

[yonif]

Moscow police: 32 foreign students killed in blaze at university dormitory; electrical fault blamed

[weegee]

I leave speculation on the cause of this fire alone. I will say that when I went to Europe I noticed a definite difference between America and Europe in regards to safety codes. I'll also note that some of these are old old buildings.

In America, there was a history of some horrible accidents that led to reforms/regulations in industry and business practices. Among them, exit doors at public businesses open outward (so people don't get trapped as the crowd rushes for the exits only to be unable to pull the doors open).

In the Czech Republic lighted hallways were uncommon at night (there might be a timer switch, some people chose to carry flashlights). Streets weren't as well lit either. Perhaps they had an emergency lighting system that would kick in that I was unaware of.

I could cite other examples, all I'm indicating is that there may have been many more deaths/injuries than we would see in America because of safety regulations. I know that there are times where FReepers may complain about too much government regulation but some fire code standards save lives. Of course, here in Houston the fire department has been regularly found checking up fire codes at strip joints during the performances ("I didn't watch the show, honest!").

[yonif]

I agree. Even in Armenia, where I have been for a while at times, safety when it comes to electricity, etc. is appaling. You have in residential neighborhoods tapping into electric current by simply stringing up a wire on to the electric poll, etc. without any oversight.

Roads at night are rarely lighted as well.

In addition the airport is pitch black in most of its areas.

Lastly, much of their fire equipment is very old, maybe 15 years old, last replaced a few years before the USSR broke up.

[piasa]

I didn't know that.

The school is named after the same namesake as is Patrice Lumumba Ford, one of the members of the Portland terror cell. Ford's Dad was active in the Black Panthers back in Hillary's day.

[Freedom4US]

Boy, you're not kidding. South Korea, where an awful lot of people are electrocuted every year because of the way they set up their house wiring. I'm not an electrician, but it has something to with neutral and hot. Even in the US, we used to have non-polarized consumer devices that weren't near as dangerous.

[piasa]

Named after the African (communist) resistance leader and first president of Congo, Patrice Lumumba Ford worked as an international relations intern in 1986 for then-Portland mayor Bud Clark and again in 1998 and 1999 for Portland Mayor Vera Katz, Patrice Lumumba Ford also taught physical education at an Islamic school in the Portland suburb of Tigard, operated a private shuttle service and worked to resettle recently arrived Muslim refugees into the Portland community. His father is Kent Ford, former head of the now defunct Portland chapter of the Black Panthersand now is a weight-training coach at Matt Dishman community Center, part of Portland Parks and Recreation, in Northeast Portland, Oregon. Patrice has a brother named James Britt.

* Ford : Ford, known as a quiet, studious man, graduated from Portland State University. He studied at the prestigious Johns Hopkins Nanjing Center for Chinese and American studies in China and earned a master's degree. He converted to Islam while in China and was known for working with new Muslim immigrants and teaching martial arts at a Muslim school. He had interned for two Portland mayors and later married a Chinese woman with whom he has a son. Family members proclaimed his innocence. "This isn't true. It doesn't make any sense," James Britt Jr., whose son is Ford's half-brother, told The Chronicle. "These charges do not fit the way I know he was raised. He was a very quiet, peaceful, loving kid." - "Portland tries to make sense of terror arrests Muslim leaders resent being labeled," by Janine DeFao, San Francisco Chronicle, September 6, 2020

****

They should have given the school a luckier name...