People implicated in Volgograd gas blast case do not deny their guilt - Investigative Committee
MOSCOW. May 17 (Interfax) - The people believed to be responsible for a household gas explosion and the collapse of part of a residential building in Volgograd on Tuesday do not deny their guilt, and the investigation will seek their arrest, the Russian Investigative Committee press service said.
"An investigator is preparing a request for the people implicated in the criminal case to be taken into custody. They have been questioned as suspects, and they do not deny their role in the crime in which they have been implicated," the press service said in a report obtained by Interfax on Wednesday.
Household gas exploded in a four-storey residential building on Universitetsky Avenue in the Sovetsky district of Volgograd on Tuesday. The latest reports indicate that four bodies have been retrieved from the rubble; 14 other people have been injured and ten of them hospitalized.
A criminal case has been opened on charges of 'performance of work or provision of services not meeting safety requirements'. Three suspects have been detained.
The investigators believe the explosion was caused by unauthorized work on a water pipeline, in the course of which a gas pipeline was damaged. The work was being done under a contract with a businessman.