Burst heating pipe floods Russian hotel with boiling water, killing 5 guests

In this image made from video provided by Russian Emergency Situations Ministry press service, shows a view of a damaged hotel of nine rooms located in the basement of a residential building which was flooded with boiling water after a pipe ruptured in Perm, Russia, Monday, Jan. 20, 2020. Russian emergency services say heating pipe damage caused deaths and injuries. (Ministry of Emergency Situations press service via AP) ORG XMIT: XAZ101 (Photo: AP)

MOSCOW – A heating pipe burst Monday in a small Russian hotel, flooding rooms with boiling water that killed five people and left six others injured in the central city of Perm, emergency officials said.

The nine-room hotel was located in the basement of a residential building in the city of 1 million people near Russia’s Ural Mountains. All of the victims, one of them a child, were staying at the hotel, authorities said. Three of the injured were hospitalized with burns. 

Russian police have opened a probe into the tragedy.

The plumbing explosion left 20 buildings, including a hospital, a school and a kindergarten, without heat or hot water in the middle of winter, local authorities said. 

Given the deaths, the Russian parliament might consider a ban on having hotels or hostels in the basements of residential buildings, Russian lawmaker Oleg Melnichenko said.

“Hostels shouldn’t be open in basements, where all pipelines are located,” Melnichenko said. 

Last year, the Russian parliament banned opening hostels or hotel rooms in apartments in residential buildings.

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