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.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not