Astana/Moscow, Nov 9 (DPA) At least 16 people were killed Monday in a fire in a warehouse for synthetic building materials in the central Asian republic of Kazakhstan, the Interfax news agency reported.
The fire rapidly spread throughout the 8,000-sq-metre warehouse in a suburb of the Kazakh capital Astana, civil defence official Shumabai Yeskendirov told the agency. Smoke inhalation was responsible for most of the deaths, he said.

Some reports put the toll at 20, but the exact number of victims was unclear, as was the cause of the fire.

Deadly fires with large numbers of victims occur regularly in the former Soviet Union due to poor fire safety regulations.