Miraculous Survival of a Baby: A Year After the Gas Explosion

This week, Ivan 'Vanya' Fokin celebrated his 'new' birthday, on the day a memorial was held for the dozens who lost their lives in a residential building in Russia. The explosion occurred in the Chelyabinsk region, killing 39 people and injuring 17.

The media dubbed him the 'miracle baby'. He lay beneath the rubble for 35 hours after a gas leak caused a building to collapse, in extreme cold of 27 degrees Celsius.

"There were great concerns for his life," the media now reports. The fear was that even if little Vanya had survived the fall and was somewhere beneath the rubble, the bone-chilling cold would overwhelm him, and he wouldn't survive.

His mother, 32-year-old Olga Fokina, survived the fall while holding her two-year-old son Dmitry. Both were miraculously saved.

Vanya's rescue was extraordinary. During a moment of silence observed by the rescuers at the rubble site, faint cries of a baby were suddenly heard. The person who prompted the search was his 35-year-old father, Yevgeny, who entered the rubble himself to urge the emergency workers to search for Vanya.

"Search dogs helped locate the child. Vanya, who was then 11 months old, was taken to safety by rescuer Pyotr Gritsenko, who recounted the miracle, saying, 'We cut through the linoleum, and I saw a baby's face. He opened his eyes and responded to sounds. He cried and called for help. There was enormous danger of everything collapsing, but at that point, we were not afraid for ourselves. We feared for the baby.'"

Vanya was rushed to the hospital with numerous injuries to his lower limbs, but miraculously, he survived the fall. Recently, the Russian media shared heartwarming footage of Vanya taking his first steps since the disaster. "He's already capable of moving quite swiftly, although until recently he couldn't even lift his leg properly," his mother shared.

Russian officials stated then that the building collapsed due to a gas leak, but a new documentary circulating mainly on social media claimed the explosion was caused by terrorists, suggesting the networks were hiding the truth. Recently, Vladimir Putin's spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, sternly responded to these rumors, stating, 'These are just unfounded rumors; the explosion, the tragedy, was caused by a gas leak. There is no new evidence news and nothing to discuss.'