Police HQ Fire Claims 23 Lives

Russian President Boris Yeltsin dispatched his interior minister Thursday to the site of a fire that killed at least 23 people at a regional police headquarters.

Another 38 people are missing and may be trapped under the rubble. The Emergencies Ministry reports 18 bodies have been pulled from the ashes and five of the 36 burn victims taken to the hospital have died of their injuries.

"I am deeply shocked by the Samara tragedy," Yeltsin said in a message of condolence to families of the victims.

"I have ordered (Prime Minister) Yevgeny Primakov and (Interior Minister) Sergei Stepashin to offer every help to the victims and their families, to immediately restore the work of the local police and to take personal control of the investigation," he said.

Interior Minister Sergei Stepashin suggested that organized crime might have been responsible for the blaze in Samara, the ITAR-Tass news agency said.

The fire started on the third floor of the six-story building Wednesday, trapping people on the upper floors, said Irina Zhirova, a spokeswoman with the Interior Ministry's national headquarters in Moscow.

Investigators initially said they thought the fire was caused by an electrical short circuit, ITAR-Tass said.

But Stepashin noted that his department had recently begun a crackdown on organized crime in the Samara region, and said investigators were looking into the possibility that the fire was deliberately set.

Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov warned that if arson was identified as the cause, "an exemplary blow will be inflicted on criminal elements," Interfax reported.

Firefighters only managed to put out the blaze early Thursday morning. By that time, the fire had gutted the building completely, Zhirova said.

Samara is on the Volga River, about 550 miles southeast of Moscow.