MOSCOW — Two years ago, a private nursing home opened in a village outside the hardscrabble capital of Russia’s steel industry, Magnitogorsk. On Tuesday, it burned down in a fire that killed 11 residents. “There was no main exit — everything was on fire,” a woman working at the nursing home told a local news outlet, describing how she tried to push residents out through a window. “I started waking, yanking, lugging people.” It was unclear how many people lived in the home. But nursing home fires are a numbingly common occurrence in Russia, where poverty and an aging population have helped spawn a growing industry of cramped and unregulated dormitories for older adults.

Source: New York Times December 15, 2020 19:41 UTC