Almost 30 injured in shell blasts in Volga area
At around 11:50 p.m. Moscow time [19:50 GMT] on Thursday shells began to explode in an artillery depot near the village of Pugachevo in Udmurtia. The facility belongs to the Defense Ministry's missile and artillery directorate and is tasked mainly with weapons disposal.
"According to verified reports... a total of 28 people were injured in the blasts, eight of them are being treated in hospitals, the remainder are receiving out-patient treatment," an emergencies ministry source said.
A spokesman for the republic's head said some of those who sought medical aid suffered from smoke inhalation, while others were cut by broken glass. "There are also people who need psychological support," he said.
Almost 10,000 people were evacuated overnight from the town of Agryz in the neighboring Republic of Tatarstan overnight, as the area was declared to be within the detonation wave radius. The city residents were allowed to return to their homes in the morning.
Eyewitnesses said fragments of the detonating shells were spotted within a two-kilometer (one-mile) zone.
The blast-hit facility stores from 5,000 to 10,000 railway carriages with various ammunition. It is believed 18 storage facilities are on fire.
A police source said rockets for the Grad multiple rocket launching systems started to explode in underground storage facilities on Friday morning, but the Russian Defense Ministry dismissed the information. A military source earlier said "no self-propelled artillery shells" were stored at the facility.
A total of 200 personnel, 30 firefighting units and three firefighting trains were deployed to deal with the blaze and explosions that followed. The fourth train is to arrive from the neighboring republic of Tatarstan soon.
The Russian Emergencies Ministry said it would send two Il-76 firefighting aircraft, each able to carry 42 metric tons of water. They took off from Moscow's Ramenskoe Airfield early on Friday morning.
Udmurtia borders the republic of Bashkortostan, where fifty houses burned to the ground, and 160 people were left homeless as a result of powerful explosions at another ammunition depot last week. Kazinform cites RIA Novosti. See www.en.rian.ru for full version