MOSCOW (AP) -- A fire broke out Friday at a textile plant in southern Russia, injuring 47 people, the Emergency Situations Ministry said.
Firefighters evacuated 120 people from the Mashuk sewing factory in the town of Pyatigorsk, about 1,400 kilometers (850 miles) south of Moscow, said ministry spokeswoman Marina Ryklina. Forty-seven people were injured, and 30 of them were hospitalized, she said.
The fire started on the bottom floor of a seven-story building. It took firefighters about an hour to extinguish it, the ITAR-Tass news agency said.
There was no word on what had sparked the fire.
About 18,000 people die in fires in Russia every year, nearly five times more than in the United States, which has twice the population. Experts say fire fatalities have skyrocketed since the collapse of the Soviet Union, in part because of lower public vigilance and a disregard for safety standards.
