A child has died after its desperate mother dropped him from a 10th-storey flat as fire ripped through it.
The distraught 32-year-old mother could be seen dangling the three-year-old boy out of a window.
As a woman filmed the harrowing scenes from an adjacent tower block, the mother could be seen letting go of the boy, hoping that someone would catch him, or break his fall.
Eyewitnesses at the scene in the Sovetskiy district of Rostov-on-Don held out a sheet in a bid to save the falling boy.
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But the child’s weight from such a height broke the sheet and the child tragically died from multiple injuries.
“It is agonising but there was no way to save him,” said one rescuer.
Moments later - not seen on video - the mother followed her son out the window, dropping 100ft.
She landed on the asphalt and also died instantly.
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There were screams from witnesses as the mother let go the child - and as she jumped from the top floor flat which was engulfed in flames and toxic black smoke.
A total of 30 people were safely evacuated from the block said the Russian Emergencies Ministry.
An investigation is underway into the cause of the fire.
