Seventeen Central Asian migrant workers died yesterday when a night-time fire engulfed a Moscow market warehouse that had been stocked to the ceiling with cots and turned into a makeshift home.

The city is becoming dangerously lax about its safety standards

“According to preliminary information, they were migrant workers. Their identities and ages are being verified,” the Russian emergencies ministry said in a statement.

Rescue officials said the migrants came from the impoverished nation of Tajikistan and possibly a few of the other neighbouring ex-Soviet states.

Numerous Moscow markets employ cheap labourers from the region without giving them proper housing or pay – a practice the authorities largely turn a blind eye to in exchange for the payment of bribes.

The deadly accident struck only hours after spectacular flames flared from the top floors of an under-construction skyscraper that Russia hopes will be Europe’s tallest once it reaches its full height of 360 metres (1,180 feet). No one was injured in Monday night’s Federation Tower blaze. But officials warned after battling the fire for more than three hours that the city was becoming dangerously lax about its safety standards.

Yesterday’s fire broke out at the Kachalovsky market on the southern outskirts of the city where many Muscovites shop for housing supplies.

Emergency workers described nightmarish living conditions with workers sleeping on hard cots that were stacked on top of each other in rows of four without any direct access to the outside.

The workers “lived in a metal annex that was equipped with a space heater”, an un-named law enforcement official told the Interfax news agency. Another official said the workers probably left the space heater on all night to stay warm.