Twenty-two Russian schoolchildren, aged from 10 to 16 years old, died todaywhen a fire tore through a remote village school in Siberia.
Twelve other people from the secondary school in the vast,sparsely-populated Yakutia region were taken to hospitalsuffering from burns and other injuries.
The fire erupted shortly after classes began at the school,a two-storey wooden building, in the village of Sydyi Bal nearthe town of Vilyuisk, over 3,000 miles east of Moscow.
Authorities said there were more than 120 children andteachers on the premises at the time. Many of those who leapt tosafety from upper storey classrooms were treated for fallinjuries.