DUSHANBE, November 8, 2011, Asia-Plus – Three Tajik nationals were killed on November 5 as a fire broke out at a chemical plant in the Russian city of Podolsk.

According to the representative office of Tajikistan’s Migration Service in Russia, Tajik migrant workers, namely Isojon Mousoyev, 19, Olimjon Rahmatov, 20, and Muqim Rahimov, 21, were living within the compound of the plant.

“The fire broke out in one of workers’ locker room Saturday morning, at around 10:24 am,” the source said.  “When firefighters extinguished the fire, they found four bodies and three of them were identified as residents of the northern Tajik district of Panjakent Isojon Mousoyev, Olimjon Rahmatov, and Muqim Rahimov.”

“Most likely, the guest workers were working illegally.  According to the plant management, the workers’ locker rooms were used by workers only for change of clothes and nobody should have lived in them.  Firefighters, however, found four bodies in the premises,” Russia’s news agency, Interfax, reports.

Meanwhile, the representative office of Tajikistan’s Migration Service says nationals of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan were using the workers’ locker room as temporal lodging for the night.  “They were going to move to the lodgings within the next few days,” the source said.