12 children die in Russia house fires

Twelve children have died in several house fires in different regions of provincial Russia, news agencies reported on Friday. Nine people including seven children died in one of the fires in a village near the central Russian city of Perm. "What are believed to be the bodies of five boys, two girls and two adults were found at the fire. It was a family, according to preliminary information," an emergency services official from the Volga region, Oleg Zugeyev, told the RIA Novosti news agency. Zugeyev said it was believed that they had died as a result of carbon monoxide poisoning. An investigation has been launched, he said. Five more children died in two separate house fires in Pugachev and Khvalynsk in the Saratov region overnight, RIA Novosti reported without indicating what caused the blazes. The mother of three of the children also died in one of the fires.