Moscow - Eight people were killed and dozens injured in an explosion in the North Caucasus region of Ingushetia that destroyed an official building, Russian news agencies reported. Rescue workers were still searching for people in the rubble of the three-story building late Tuesday.
"A total of 30 people were pulled from under the debris, eight of them were dead," said a spokeswoman for the Emergency Services Ministry in the regional capital Nazran.
At least 20 people were hospitalized after the incident, she said.
The republic's bailiff offices in Nazran blew up at 9.50 am Moscow time, the Interfax news agency reported, quoting a law enforcement source.
Russian television images showed a gaping whole blown clear through three-floors of a wing of the red-brick headquarters. Cranes lifted huge chunks of rubble, while relatives of the victims crowded in the snow.
Agencies quoted emergency services workers as saying the blast was most likely the result of a gas leak. But officials have yet to confirm the cause of the explosion.
"All possible resources are being deployed to render assistance to the victims," the Ingush President, Yunis-Bek Yevkurov, was quoted by Interfax as saying.
Ingushetia is a poverty- and strife-torn region bordering Chechnya, where the Kremlin has been fighting a insurgents, who have been linked to militant Islamic movements.
