Blasts rock Russian ammunition depot, 35 missing

MOSCOW — Huge explosions and fire rocked a Russian ammunition depot Friday, leaving dozens of people missing and prompting the evacuation of thousands of civilians nearby, officials and Russian news agencies said.

The blasts and fire erupted while ammunition was being destroyed at the arsenal in the Ulyanovsk province, according to the Federal Security Service branch in the region, 720 kilometers (430 miles) east of Moscow. The explosions and fire continued to rage for hours.

Provincial governor Sergei Morozov said 35 people who were working at the facility were considered missing, the Interfax, RIA Novosti and ITAR-Tass news agencies reported. Morozov was quoted as saying 10 people were hospitalized and 3,000 people were evacuated.

Television networks broadcast footage showing flames and thick clouds of smoke rising from the military facility, with frequent explosions lighting up the night sky. The blasts shook windows and set off car alarms miles (kilometers) away, the INterfax news agency reported.

State-run RIA Novosti quoted an unnamed emergency official as saying one person was killed, but officials did not immediately confirm the report.

Several explosions and fires have occurred at munitions storage facilities in the former Soviet Union in recent years. There has been no indication of terrorism in the conflagrations.

Artillery shells and other ammunition at a storage facility west of Ukraine's capital, Kiev, exploded when a forest fire got too close in August last year, and a fire and explosions at a munitions depot in southern Ukraine in 2004 killed five people. It took days to put the blaze out.

A fire at a Soviet-era military base in Kagan, Uzbekistan, spread to an ammunitions depot in July 2008, igniting a series of explosions that killed three people and injured 21 others.