[ad_1]
More than 12,000 people were evacuated after ammunition stored in an arms depot in northern Ukraine began to explode early Tuesday and caused a huge fire, authorities said.
The security services said they were investigating a "possible sabotage" during an incident at a Ministry of Defense depot near the village of Droujba, about 135 kilometers northeast of Kiev .
Emergency services indicated that they had no information on deaths, and regional authorities indicated that more than 60 people needed medical assistance for the treatment. inhalation of smoke.
Gray and white smoke rose Tuesday morning at the horizon, saw an AFP photographer, as explosions were fired every two minutes.
A Ministry of Defense official said the fire was raging in five storage areas, covering about 10% of the total about 700 hectares.
The fire and explosions began at approximately 3:30 am local time (0030 GMT) at the number six depot, emergency services said.
Rodion Tymoshenko, deputy chief of the staff of Ukraine, said that four explosions had erupted in different parts of the depot before a fire broke out, suggesting that the incident could be a "sabotage", a barely veiled blow against Russia.
Kiev forces have been fighting pro-Russian separatists in the east of the country since 2014 as part of a conflict that has killed more than 10,000 people.
More than 12,000 people have been evacuated from the area at risk, emergency services said.
President Petro Poroshenko convened a meeting of heads of security forces and promised to provide all the necessary help to residents, said his spokesman on Facebook.
Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman went on the scene and chaired a meeting of emergency services managers.
"The essential thing is to preserve people's lives, no matter what is destroyed, we will rebuild," he wrote on Facebook.
The authorities closed the airspace within 30 kilometers of the site, as well as rail and road traffic.
More than a hundred firefighters worked on the scene, while the Ministry of Defense had sent a fire tank.
– & Sabotage possible & # 39; –
The Ministry of Defense said that the intensity of the explosions had decreased in the morning and that the explosions in progress concerned rifle ammunition and not shells.
Tymoshenko denied the emergency service, saying the depot contained 88,000 tons of ammunition, saying the total was secret.
More than half of the ammunition was safely removed from the depot before the fire, he said at a press briefing.
The SBU security service stated that he was considering a "possible sabotage".
Military prosecutors have opened an investigation into possible negligence on the part of those responsible.
Stale ammunition stocks dating from the Soviet era often cause fires and explosions in Ukraine and Russia.
It was the sixth major fire over three years in a weapons depot of the Ukrainian army.
In March 2017, a huge fire unleashed explosions in a city depot in Balakliya, in the eastern part of Ukraine controlled by Kiev, making one dead and five wounded.
The Ukrainian authorities blamed the incident on an "act of sabotage".
phot-dg-ant / am / as / wdb
