30 Killed in Belarus Mental Hospital Fire

A patient at a Belarus mental hospital set fire to the building Sunday, killing 30 people and injuring 31, emergency officials said.

Hospital personnnel tried to put out the fire themselves when it started at 5 a.m., and only called the fire department after a half-hour, Emergency Situations Minister Valery Astapov told Belarusian television.

When firefighters arrived, the building was in flames and the roof had collapsed, he said. Emergency workers pulled 29 bodies from the wreckage, and one person died later of burns.

The mental hospital is located near the town of Kozlovichi, some 150 miles west of Minsk, the capital of this former Soviet Union republic.

The patient, who was one of those killed, had tried twice before to set fire to the hospital, said a spokeswoman for President Alexander Lukashenko. She said the president had ordered a government investigation into the fire.