TIRANA (Albania), March 17 (SeeNews) - The death toll from Saturday’s blast at an ammunition dump in Albania rose to 11 on Monday and eight people are still missing, Albanian TV channel ALSAT reported.
A massive chain of explosions accrued in the ammunition dump located in the Gerdec village, some 10 kilometers from the capital Tirana, on Saturday at 1145 local time (1045 GMT). The explosions stopped on Sunday morning. Albanian police said in a statement that the cause of the explosions was unclear, but a terror attack was not suspected.
Some 290 Gerdec residents were injured during the series of explosions, Albania’s defence ministry said earlier. More than 300 houses were destroyed and another 2,000 houses and Business premises were damaged, including some located near the sole Albanian international airport Mother Teresa. Some 1,000 soldiers and 500 policemen have been working at the blast site to rescue people and to secure the area against further explosions.
Five of those most seriously injured were sent for treatment to Greece on Saturday night and another four to Italy, Albania’s Prime Minister Sali Berisha tols a news conference held on Sunday. Berisha said he could not rule out a human error in the blast but added that the ammunition could have exploded spontaneously due to its old age.
Albania has some 100,000 tonnes of ammunition stored in depots countrywide. The ammunition is mainly Russian and Chinese make manufactured in the 1960s.
At the time of the blast military experts were disposing of shells assisted by employees of a U.S. company contracted by NATO to help Albania destroy ammunition from the communist era. NATO countries have helped Albania destroy outdated ammunition, a precondition for the Western Balkan country to join the Alliance.
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