Death toll hits 21; 20 still missing

Rescuers yesterday hunted for survivours in the rubble of a Russian apartment building wrecked by a New Year's Eve gas explosion, but found only bodies as the number of confirmed dead rose to 21.

Twenty people were still missing following the explosion, which destroyed 35 high-rise apartments in the Ural mountains city of Magnitogorsk.

Braving temperatures that fell as low as minus 27 degrees Celsius (minus 16 degrees Fahrenheit), rescue workers were combing through mangled concrete and metal.

Their efforts were given a boost on Tuesday when a 10-month-old baby boy was found alive and reunited with his mother. But hope was starting to fade of finding many more survivors.

The explosion, believed to have been caused by a gas leak, tore through the 10-storey building in the industrial town nearly 1,700 kilometres (1,050 miles) east of Moscow, in the early hours of Monday.

Witnesses described a "wave of fire" and said the blast was strong enough to shatter windows in nearby buildings.

The Soviet-era apartment block was home to about 1,100 people and the explosion left dozens homeless over the New Year -- the biggest holiday of the year in Russia.