Town emptied after arms depot blasts

UKRAINIAN authorities evacuated more than 30 000 people yesterday from the central Vinnytsia region after a huge arms depot caught fire and set off explosions in what prosecutors said was a possible act of “sabotage”.

It is the second incident affecting a large Ukrainian weapons storage site this year.

Kiev blamed a deadly fire in March on Moscow and its Russian-backed insurgents fighting Ukrainian forces in the war-wracked east – a charge denied. Vinnytsia lies nearly 700km west of the war zone.

The pro-Western ex-Soviet republic’s military prosecutor said it was opening an investigation into possible “sabotage at a military facility”.

Immediate reports mentioned no casualties from the blasts at a facility that stored some 83 000 tons of munitions.

A reporter heard explosions in the town of Kalynivka in Vinnytsia 175km southwest of Kiev every five to 10 minutes.

A resident said: “Some homes had their windows and doors completely blown out.”

“This is the arsenal of the Ukrainian army, and I think it was no accident that it was destroyed,” Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman said on TV from the scene.

The military said the fire broke out at around 10pm Tuesday. Hospitals were evacuated and officials also shut down surrounding airspace as a precaution to keep exploding missiles from hitting passing commercial jets.

Russia refers to the fighting as a “civil war” – a term that irritates Kiev. — AFP