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Most homes for the elderly and disabled in Primorye do not meet the fire safety requirements having no up-to-date systems of fire fighting and alarm, a recent inspection by the regional Fire Service Inspectorate revealed.

Out of 25 nursing homes operating in the region, only eight are equipped with appropriate fire safety equipment and alarms, Ria Novosti cited acting Head of the Inspectorate Andrei Tarasov.

The unscheduled inspection was provoked by a recent tragedy in Tula region, western Russia, where a fire swept through a hospice for the elderly leaving 32 dead on November 4.

The latest inspection in Primorye prompted reports calling for four institutions where violations were found to be shut down, with 16 letters of notice addressed to the regional prosecutor’s office and 12 to local governing bodies. The decision to close the institutions, however, was not taken due to the unavailability of alternative accommodations for the residents.

According to Tarasov, every inspection of social care institutions regularly ends up with reports on violations. The issue of the elderly and disabled homes’ fire safety has long idled due to a lack of proper financing, he stressed.

“Up-to-date fire fighting systems are expensive, and the process of installing them into social care buildings is too slow,” Ria Novosti cited Tarasov as saying.

This summer Primorye administration adopted a program for providing fire safety in social care institutions that invloves the allocation of over 26 million rubles ($1.04 million) for the purchase of special fire fighting installments. An initial sum of six million rubles has already been allotted to be distributed to the institutions immediately, the agency reported.

In June 2007, a fire occurred in a home for the elderly in Omsk region, central Russia, killing ten people and injuring four. In May, three people died and 13 were injured in a mental hospital fire in Rostov region. Earlier in March, a deadly blaze in a home for the elderly in Russia’s Krasnodar region left 61 people killed.