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Blast in Moscow

apartment block

MOSCOW: An explosion in a Moscow apartment block early Friday left at least four people dead or injured, the Interfax news agency quoted police as saying.

The cause of the blast and the severity of the victims' injuries were not immediately clear.

The Itar-Tass news agency reported that medical teams and firefighters were at the scene of the blast in the south of Moscow and were evacuating residents from a fire in the building.

The blast occurred on the top floor of the building situated near the Lomonossov university.

Moreover, sixtytwo percent of Russian consider the military action in the militant republic Chechnya to be a success, according to the results of a poll, the Interfax news agency reported on Thursday.

Twentlyfive percent of respondents of the poll, conducted in mid-January by the VTSIOM institute, considered the fighting to have reached a stalemate.

Less than half of the Russians questioned, 44 percent, felt that the Russian action was sufficiently strong and determined, with 38 percent disagreeing. Just seven percent said that the Russian army's action in Chechnya was too severe.

The poll of 1,600 people was conducted between January 14-17.ÑAFP