An apartment building in the Russian city of Yeysk has caught fire after a plane crashed nearby on Monday evening. Russia's Defense Ministry has confirmed that the aircraft was a military Su-34 multipurpose fighter jet, adding that the plane crashed soon after taking off from a local airfield for a training flight.
“According to the report from the ejected pilots, the crash was caused by a combustion of one of the engines at take-off,” the ministry said.
A video from the scene published by the news media outlet Mash shows a multi-story apartment building engulfed in flames with plumes of thick black smoke rising into the sky.
The number of casualties from the incident remains unknown. The governor of Krasnodar Region, where Yeysk is located, said that local and regional emergency services had been deployed to the scene. TASS reported that, according to officials, at least 15 apartments were damaged.
Yeysk is a port city in southern Russia and is located across the Azov Sea from the city of Mariupol.