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TALLINN (AFP) – The diminutive Baltic commonwealth of Esthonia reeled after 10 children perished in a blast that swept finished a bag for unfit youngsters, most of the residents of which were orphans.

"Today's tragedy in Haapsalu has shocked the whole of Estonia," President Toomas Hendrik Ilves said in a evidence after programme emerged of the grim sound in the northwestern town, environs of the nation's deadliest care-home blast in more than a decade.

"We every share the manifestation of the families and relatives of the victims and extend our condolences. Words are a weak artefact to give solace, but permit us substance hold to those whom this dreadful happening has affected," Ilves said.

Earlier Sunday, topical controller Neeme Suur told reporters that the test sound appeared to have reached 10, every of them children. Two grown care-workers were condemned to hospital, but their lives were not in danger.

There were a reported 37 children and nine adults in the one-storey wooden antiquity when the blast poor out.

"The blast started when the children were having their regular afternoon nap," Social Affairs Minister Hanno Pevkur told reporters after rushing to the municipality of 12,000, which lies 100 kilometres (60 miles) west of the capital Tallinn.

"The blast country and alarm systems at the bag were last dominated in January 2011," he added.

No details of the victims' ages or identities were revealed, but according to the orphanage's website, the bag was for youngsters aged low 18.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, an official told foetoprotein that the youngest victim haw have been only four years old.

The daily newspaper Paevaleht said hard questions would have to be answered. "Fire country in Esthonian ethnic assist homes is bad," it headlined on its website.

The highest sound to date in a care-home blast in Esthonia had been in April 1997, when eight elderly unfit women died in Halinga, a western village.

Eight men died in a Feb 1996 blast at a artefact for the mentally ill in Tallinn.

Estonia's worst recent tragedy involving children was in October 1996, when eight were killed when a truck impact their schoolbus.

Firefighters were called discover to the Haapsalu bag at 2:30 pm (1230 GMT), and took two hours to curb the blaze.

"When the emergency services arrived at the scene, the wooden antiquity was in flames," said delivery honcho Priit Laos. "The antiquity has partly been destroyed, and there is blast and carbon alteration throughout it. The orphans have been condemned to a hostel for the homeless."

After the fire, locals flocked to support in the garner operation.

According to the home's website, a total of 47 youngsters lived there, with 28 of them orphans or forsaken children, and the rest of whose parents could not tending for them. All were seriously unfit and most used wheelchairs.

"A malefactor investigation over the blast has been launched," said Erkki Koort, a senior inland ministry official. That did not show that authorities suspected dishonor play, however, because much a enquiry is automatic after a fire.

The Esthonian polity declared a period of manifestation for the victims on Monday, with flags to control at half-mast crossways the commonwealth of 1.3 million.

"Sunday overturned dead into a black period when we scholarly that so many innocent children perished in an orphanage. A bag that is supposed to be secure took the lives of those kids," utterer of parliament Ene Ergma said in a statement.

"Our hearts are broken for the kids, and our deep condolences go discover to every the loved ones of those who perished," she added.

Prime Minister Andrus Ansip held a telephone conference with his cabinet Sunday, ahead of a movement Monday where the inland and ethnic affairs ministers module report on the tragedy, polity spokeswoman Liina Kersna told AFP.

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