Yevhen Marchuk,
Ukrainian Defence Minister
Debris from the blasts have spread over a large area
Posted on 05/11/2004 2:32:16 PM PDT by balrog666
Explosions are still going off at an arms dump in south-east Ukraine more than four days after it caught fire.
Five people were killed and thousands evacuated from a 10km radius of the base where almost 300,000 tons of ammunition was stored.
The Ukrainian army has started clearing up the devastation and some people are returning to their homes.
But the Ukrainian defence minister has warned that chances of a similar accident happening cannot be ruled out.
Yevhen Marchuk told Ukrainian television that the army had inherited huge arsenals from the Soviet-era and was short of funds to ensure their safety.
Everything has been stored in huge heaps like beets Yevhen Marchuk, Ukrainian Defence Minister He said the problem was aggravated by lax army discipline.
Mr Marchuk said the ammunition store, which caught fire near Melitopol in the Zaporizhzhya region, was loaded beyond capacity with mines, rockets, grenades and cartridges as well as "quite serious missiles and quite dangerous pieces of munitions there".
He said this was a problem throughout the country which he has tried to raise before.
"It's hard to imagine the nightmare of hundreds and hundreds of thousands of shells (lying around) in the grass and in the bushes for decades," he said.
"No-one has dared approach them as everything has long been rotten. Everything has been stored in huge heaps like beets."
Prosecutors also say there have been violations of security regulations, and criminal negligence, by soldiers managing some of Ukraine's nearly 200 munitions depots.
Heart failures
The BBC's Helen Fawkes in Kiev says the area around the military base resembles a war zone and minor explosions are still being heard about every 15 minutes.
The Commission for Man Made Disasters and Emergencies has estimated that the cost of the damage is more than $500m (£281m).
At the height of the blaze, which started on Thursday, there were 5,000 blasts an hour. The explosions sprayed debris and shells many kilometres away from the arms dump in south eastern Ukraine.
Health officials said one store guard died and four other people died later due to heart problems aggravated by the stress of the disaster, according to AP.
There is still a 5km exclusion zone around the base and soldiers are clearing debris from villages, fields, roads and railway lines
The emergency ministry is handing out leaflets telling people what to do if they find unexploded ordnance.
Two air ambulances are on standby in case anyone is injured.
"Yes, just like that."
And isn't Chernobyl in the Ukraine? Land of many disasters.
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