Fifteen people have died in a blast at a Bulgarian explosives decommissioning plant, officials say, as workers complained of low pay and poor safety at the facility, which has seen several incidents in recent years.
"Thirteen men and two women perished. The blast was so powerful that it left craters," civil defence force director Nikolay Nikolov said on Thursday.
Three female workers were also injured in the explosion, which rocked the mountainous area around the village of Gorni Lom in northwestern Bulgaria on Wednesday evening, residents told state television.
The women were taken to hospital and were not in critical condition.
Nikolov said "human error" was the most probable cause of the blast, which razed several buildings at the small plant.
The devastation was so complete that "no traces whatsoever of bodies could be seen" at the site, he added, noting that police forensic workers were continuing to search the area.
According to the plant's management, 12 workers and three of the factory chiefs were inside the facility at the time of the blast, which happened as Greek landmines were being taken apart.
Local resident Dimitar Dimitrov, 59, told: "I used to work there and I sneaked inside the area long before the engineers arrived. Everything was razed to the ground."
Among the locals, many of whom lost friends and relatives, the disaster did not come as much of a surprise.
Safety rules were ignored at the plant, outdated machinery was used, and workers were poorly paid, they complained.
Bulgarian President Rosen Plevneliev did not mince his words on Thursday, saying: "Innocent human lives were lost because of the arrogant breaching of instructions and rules in state institutions governing work with explosives."
The country's main prosecutor has launched an investigation into the accident.
The factory, some 120km (75 miles) north of Sofia, destroys stockpiles of obsolete munitions for the Bulgarian army and Dnes daily newspaper quoted an expert as saying it had been handling explosives from Greece.
Some 10 tonnes of highly explosive chemicals were being stored at the plant.
"The factory has been reduced to ashes," an interior ministry spokesman said.
There were explosions at the factory in 2007 and 2010, in which several people were hurt.
Two units of the plant were flattened in the 2010 blast.
Thursday 2 October 2014
http://news.msn.co.nz/worldnews/8914555/bulgarian-explosives-plant-blast-kills-15
0 comments:
Post a Comment