Rescue mission ... firefighters at Lame Horse nightclubAT least 101 people were killed and 140 injured last night after fireworks sparked a blaze at a packed Russian nightclub.
Clubbers rushed for the doors of the Lame Horse nightspot in the centre of Perm, a city of 1.2m, 870 miles east of Moscow, after a pyrotechnics show went disastrously wrong.
"The number of dead is 101 people, 140 people are receiving medical help and 85 are seriously injured," a local health official said.
A witness told reporters dozens of charred bodies were piled on the pavement outside the club as medics moved the injured into ambulances.
The fire follows a bombing last Friday which killed 26 people and injured more than a hundred travelling on a train between Moscow and St Petersburg. Chechen Islamist militants have since claimed responsibility for the attack.
That blast stoked fears that Russia could face a nationwide bombing campaign, but Russian officials played down any links between the train attack and the nightclub disaster.
"We are not talking about a terrorist attack," Oleg Chirkunov, the governor of Perm said.
Detectives said they did not suspect a bomb attack.
Witnesses quoted by local media said a stray firework sparked the blaze during a stage show, prompting panic as hundreds of clubbers rushed for the exits.
"I've just spoken to a friend who was there," said a posting on a popular Russian forum.
"He says there was no blast, everything flared up from the fireworks. Many people were cut off from the exit and suffocated as a result," the posting said.
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