Five young children and a teenager from the same family die in a night time fire tragedy

Nikita Panin, 18, who was looking after the children while other adults were at a neighbour's banya (sauna), was also killed. The young victims were named as Taisiya, 18 months, Dima, two, Semen, four, Daniil, six, and Denis, seven. The two youngest were the children of Nikita's sister Alyona. The others were younger brothers of Nikita and Alyona.

The fire horror started shortly before 1am and the emergency services initially expressed fears that a total of 14 people, including 11 children could have been in the building at the time.

'So far only six bodies have been found. An investigation is under way,' said a law enforcement source, according to Itar-Tass.

'The first fire crews arrived at the scene sixteen minutes after the fire broke out,' said a source in the regional centre of the Emergencies Ministry. 

'The flames had spread to an area of 200 square metres by that time. There was a threat that the fire could go over the adjacent buildings.'

The mother and grandmother of the victims was so distraught at the scene that she could not say how many members of her family were in the house when the blaze ignited.

Two more siblings of Nikita and Alyona, a 14 year old boy and 15 year old girl, were at a disco in the village and were unharmed. 

A total of 33 firefighters and 14 appliances were involved in extinguishing the fire amid fears that it could spread to another building in Yelovoye, east of Kransoyarsk city.

Some reports of the case highlighted Russia's poor fire safety record compared with other countries. 

Around 15,000 people die in fires across the country annually. In the United States, with more than twice the population, the figure is around 3,400 deaths a year, said RIA Novosti.