5 children killed in school stairway collapse in Russia

Five children have died and four have been injured after part of a school collapsed in Russia.

A section of the two-storey building in Belyayevka, a small town in the southeastern Urals, came crashing down, spreading debris over a wide area.

Local people rushed to help firemen and police trying to rescue the children, aged seven to 17, from the rubble.

An Emergencies Ministry spokeswoman said: "Eleven children have been taken out of the rubble, five of them are dead, four are injured and 800 people were evacuated."

Prosecutors have launched a criminal investigation into possible violations of building safety regulations, while experts tried to identify the main point of weakness in the fabric of the building, constructed in 1962.

Eleven people were pulled from the rubble and 800 were evacuated from the school, located near the city of Orenburg in the Russia's Urals region, she said.

Rescuers lifted large slabs of concrete as they searched through the rubble at the foot of a gaping hole in the school building, television pictures showed.

The dead children were all in the 11th grade, the Interfax and RIA Novosti news agencies reported, citing emergency officials.

Investigators are studying the incident for evidence of criminal negligence in the repairs.

A regional safety official said the collapse occurred when workers removed a window frame from a part of the building near the set of stairs, Interfax reported.

The collapse occurred at the school in the village of Belyayevka in the Orenburg region, ministry spokesman Alexander Sorokaletovskikh said.

Salvage teams have rescued six children from under debris, four of whom have been hospitalized. But Sorokaletovskikh said there could be more bodies still buried under rubble.

He said the school was undergoing repairs but remained open.