Huge explosions and flames ripped through a Russian military arsenal for hours, killing two firefighters and sending personnel fleeing to a bomb shelter to wait out the worst of the firestorm, officials said.
The dozens who took refuge in the shelter were at first feared trapped in the conflagration, but later emerged safe — dispelling initial worries of a high death toll, but a subsequent report said 11 others were unaccounted for.
Russian TV broadcast footage of orange flames and thick smoke clouds rising from the naval munitions facility in Ulyanovsk, a city 720km east of Moscow.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Frequent explosions set off firebursts high in the night sky. The blasts broke apartment windows near the facility and set off car alarms kilometers away, residents told Russian media.
“There was a loud bang, then there was silence and then explosions, explosions, explosions — like fireworks on New Year’s,” resident Igor Komandin told Channel 1 television.
The blasts and blaze erupted while ammunition was being destroyed at the facility, the Federal Security Service branch in the province said. Artillery shells and other munitions were stored at the site, state-run Channel 1 reported.
Two firefighters were killed and seven military personnel were injured, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Alexei Kuznetsov said.
Some 3,000 civilians were evacuated from nearby homes, Ulyanovsk Provincial Governor Sergei Morozov said.
Both Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin showed concern about the blasts. Medvedev directed the military and emergency services to take “all the necessary measures” to deal with the emergency, the Kremlin said. Putin issued similar instructions, Interfax cited his spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying.
Hours after the blasts and fire began on Friday, Morozov said more than 40 workers were safe.
“These are precisely the people considered to be missing,” Morozov told Channel 1 by telephone.
He had said earlier that 35 people were missing.
The 43 military personnel who took refuge in the bomb shelter emerged with the help of rescuers after firefighters “partially localized” the blaze, the provincial government said on its Web site.
State-run RIA Novosti later cited governor’s aide Sergei Davydov as saying 11 civilians and military personnel were still unaccounted for, but that it was possible they were with relatives.
Morozov said the fire was out, but that isolated explosions continued late on Friday, Interfax reported. It quoted the governor as saying six people remained hospitalized.
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