Siberia industrial fire death toll rises to 7, company says

The death toll from an industrial fire at a remote petrochemical site in Russia's Amur region has risen to seven, with nine people missing, the company overseeing the site said Wednesday.

Amur GKhK said the dead included one Russian citizen and six Chinese citizens. It said the nine people whose fate remained unknown were Chinese citizens employed by a contracting company.

The fire broke out Tuesday at the Amur Gas Chemical Complex, a joint Russian-Chinese venture in the east of Siberia near the Chinese border. The company said 152 people sought medical attention and 36 were taken by rescue plane to hospitals with wounds of varying severity.

Rescue operations were continuing, and the company said the fire had been extinguished. The Amur Gas Chemical Complex is jointly owned by Russia's Sibur and China's Petroleum & Chemical Corporation, known as Sinopec.