A Tajik man who was severely injured in the partial collapse of an apartment block in the Russian city of Magnitogorsk on December 31 has regained consciousness.  The first thing Shuhrat Ulfatov asked after he regained consciousness was about his wife and children.

Shuhrat Ulfatov's uncle, Bakhtiyor Sultonov, says Shuhrat came out of a coma late on January 9 and he was able to communicate with representatives of Tajikistan's Consulate in Yekaterinburg on January 10.

“The first thing he asked after he regained consciousness was about his wife and children and they told him that they are fine,” Sultonov said.  

According to him, physicians assess Shuhrat’s health condition as stable

An apartment block in Magnitogorsk, Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia, partially collapsed on December 31, 2018, at approximately 6:02 a.m. local time.  The cause of the collapse is believed to have been a gas explosion.

The 10-story high-rise apartment block, built in 1973, was home to 120 people, and 48 flats collapsed in the blast.

Citing emergencies officials, Russian media reports said after the completion of the rescue operations on January 3 that the blast killed at least 39 people and injured 17 others.

The twenty-four-year-old Rajambo Isoyeva and her three children - 6-year-old Ahmad, 4-year-old Fotima, and 3-year-old Muhammad -- were among those who died in the building collapse.

The family's father, Shuhrat Ulfatov, 26, survived after spending more than six hours under the debris and was taken to a hospital in the city of Chelyabinsk, where he was put in a medically-induced coma.