At least 30 members of a Russian doomsday cult have barricaded themselves in a remote cave to await the end of the world and are threatening to commit suicide if police intervene.
They have reportedly covered the entrance and are refusing to come out and are threatening to blow themselves up with a gas tank, according to an official in the local prosecutor's office.
The cult members, who include 29 adults and four children, are hidden inside a snow-covered hillside in the Penza region of Russia.
Police say they moved into the dug-out on 7 November. They are thought to have taken food and fuel supplies in with them and Russian television pictures from the scene showed smoke or steam coming out of a hole in the snow-covered ravine where it was built.
A police patrol was guarding the area to prevent anyone provoking them.
Media reports said the cult members believed the world would end sometime in May next year. Police expect them to emerge when their supplies run out.
Izvestia newspaper said the leader of the cult, Pyotr Kuznetsov, had been detained by police. It said he was a 43-year-old who had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and that in the last few months he had been sleeping in a coffin.
Police took Mr Kuznetsov to the cave to persuade his followers to come out but without success, according to reports.
