MOSCOW (AFP) ??” Thirty-six mainly Asian and African foreign close examiners died and scores were injured when a fire tore by the agency of a university hostel in Moscow reportedly the capital's deadliest blaze in a decade.

MOSCOW (AFP) ??” Thirty-six mainly Asian and African foreign close examiners died and scores were injured when a fire tore by the agency of a university hostel in Moscow reportedly the capital's deadliest blaze in a decade, officials said.

More than 180 were hospitalised, health officials were quot as saying through the Interfax news agency. Many tolerateed broken limbs and one Ecuadorean scholar reportedly died after jumping not at home of the five-storey building to escape the raging inferno.

Forty-seven scholars were in critical condition and another ten in an extremely critical state, the officials said.

A criminal inquiry was launched and investigations were still going forward to determine the causes of the fire, which could have been started deliberately, officials said initially.

delegate interior minister Rashid Nurgaliyev later, however, said there was no sign "of criminal evidence", and the mostly likely cause was a faulty electric appliance.

President Vladimir Putin, who uncloseed ...