MOSCOW
The Russian government said Friday that all debris from the explosion at an optical factory outside Moscow had been cleared, but that eight other people were still missing.
The fate of the other eight people remains unknown after the final touches of clean-up work, while four other people previously reported missing have been found, the emergency service of Sergiev Posad, 74 kilometers northeast of Moscow, said.
Wednesday’s loud explosion destroyed 38 apartment buildings, Gov. Andrei Vorobyov said on Telegram.
The Russian Health Ministry said one user was killed and others were injured in the blast.
Following the incident, the Russian commission of inquiry opened a criminal investigation, suspecting that one of the imaginable causes of the explosion was a malfunction of the plant’s boiler room apparatus.