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Emergency personnel work at the site of the fire in the village of Nesterovo outside Moscow on January 7. Photo: AP

Hang said on January 8 that shortly after receiving notification of the fire and the possibility of some Vietnamese among the victims, the Vietnamese Embassy in Russia sent staff to the scene and worked with local relevant agencies to verify information.

However, local new agencies reported that eight labor migrants from Vietnam have been killed by a fire at a farm in the Moscow region.

Initial Russian media reports on January 7 quoted officials from the Emergency Situations Ministry as saying the victims were from Tajikistan.

But authorities at Tajikistan's embassy in Moscow told RFE/RL that their representatives sent to the scene of the fire determined that all of those killed in the blaze were Vietnamese.

A ninth migrant worker also was injured by the fire at the structure where the workers were living. The injured man's citizenship was not disclosed.

The early morning fire was at the village of Nesterovo in the Ramensky district of the Moscow region.

The fire broke out in one of the metal construction trailers where workers lived. Local firefighters battled the blaze for an hour. It wasn’t immediately clear what caused it.

The number of deadly fires traditionally grows in Russia during the New Year holidays on the first week of January. The country’s emergency services usually attribute the trend to elaborate celebrations that often include use of fireworks and an increase in alcohol consumption.

According to VNA, representatives of the Vietnamese Embassy in Russia have been working with local authorities to verify the identity of victims of a greenhouse farm fire in Moscow who are suspected to be Vietnamese migrants.

In a meeting with the embassy, Ramensky district’s police confirmed that a fire broke out at a greenhouse farm in Ramensky district on the outskirts of Moscow, killing eight people and injuring one woman. The female victim was severely burned and immediately taken to hospital.

The deceased includes three men and three women while the two others have yet to be identified. The bodies have been carried to a mortuary and will be examined for identification on January 9.

Representatives from the embassy told the Vietnam News Agency’s correspondent in Moscow that they are ready to take citizen protection measures if necessary.

Staff of the Vietnamese embassy visited the injured and confirmed that she is a Vietnamese from Tan Son district of Phu Tho province, the spokeswoman noted.

Hang added the Foreign Ministry ordered the Consular Department to promptly coordinate with domestic authorised agencies to provide relevant information to help with the victim identification.

The Vietnamese Embassy in Russia was also requested to keep a close watch on the incident, work closely with the two counties’ authorities to accelerate the victim identification, carry out necessary citizen protection measures, and receive information and relatives of the victims suspected to be Vietnamese in the case.

Anyone seeking help can dial the embassy’s hotline +7 (903) 682 16 17 or the citizen protection switchboard +84 981 84 84 84.

Millions of migrant workers from Central Asia live in Russia, where they often perform menial jobs for low pay under lax safety conditions.

Migrant workers also travel to Russia from other parts of Asia, including some 14,700 Vietnamese who received work permits in 2018, according to Russia's state statistics service./.