GERDEC, March 16 – Fifteen people were killed and 296 injured from a massive explosion at an Albanian army ammunition dump near Tirana. More are feared dead.
Some 4,000 people from three villages and other areas surrounding the blast were evacuated.
The initial blast at 11.43 local time at the depot at Gerdec village, some 20 kilometers north of the capital, Tirana, set off a series of explosions, and ammunition continued to detonate for several hours.
The blast was heard as far away as 190 kilometers far in the Macedonian capital of Skopje.
Tirana International Airport briefly suspended flights after being slightly damaged.
Houses more than two kilometers away were damaged by the blast.
Albanian television stations showed a massive ball of fire shooting up from the site, while shrapnel and shell fragments rained down on homes and vehicles.
Rescue efforts were suspended late evening as authorities were unable to get to the site of the main blast to assess how many casualties there were due to the lack of power there.
Prime Minister Sali Berisha said fifteen people had been found dead near the site of the explosion. Three were identified.
“The most dangerous area, where it is foreseen there will be dead, is the explosion site where none has been able to go yet,” said Interior Minister Bujar Nishani. He said authorities evacuated the surrounding area and explosives experts would clear the area of remaining ammunition in the next few days.
Police said the cause of the explosion was not immediately clear, but terrorism was not suspected.
Twelve of the injured were in serious condition. But Sunday morning 11 were taken to Italy and eight in Greece for further treatment.
Berisha visited victims in hospitals in Tirana and said most of the injured were suffering from burns and psychological shock.
Albania received offers of assistance from Italy, Greece, Switzerland and many other countries to treat the injured.
Italy was sending a plane carrying medical personnel and equipment in response to an Albanian request. France and the United States have offered help and support.
In neighboring Kosova, where most of the population is ethnic Albanian, hundreds of people lined up at a Prishtina hospital to give blood, and NATO-led peacekeepers were sending blood reserves by helicopters, officials said.
In Skopje, Macedonians donated blood; Macedonian Foreign Minister Antonio Milososki was heading to Tirana to offer assistance, and donating blood himself.
Greek Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyannis said she has expressed Greece’s solidarity and intention to help.
Authorities said that 110 people had been working at the dump at the time of the explosion. There had been a delay of about 10 minutes between the initial blast and the explosions that followed, and that many of the workers had managed to run away.
A big crater beyond the plant area was created from the explosion, said Berisha.
The army depot is used as a location to destroy excess ammunition.
Albania has some 100,000 tons of excess ammunition stored in former army depots across the country.
NATO countries, and particularly the United States, Canada and Norway, have been helping with funding for Albania to destroy excess ammunition and obsolete weaponry.
“The problem of ammunition in Albania is one of the gravest, and a continuous threat,” Berisha said. “There is a colossal, a crazy amount of them since 1945 until now.”
He said he did not exclude human error in Saturday’s blast, but added that the ammunition could have exploded spontaneously because of its age.
Sunday morning army troops resumed search-and-rescue operations, also finding a nine-year old child some 100 meters from the blast.
Explosions stopped at about 2 a.m.
