4 dead, 170 injured in Albania blast

TIRANA, Albania (AP) -- A massive explosion at an Albanian army ammunition dump near Tirana on Saturday killed at least four people and injured more than 170, including many children. The prime minister said he feared there could be many dead.

The initial blast at the depot at Gerdec village, about six miles north of the capital, Tirana, set off a series of explosions, and ammunition continued to detonate for hours. Health Minister Nard Ndoka said that about 170 people, including many children, had been injured.

Flights were suspended at Mother Teresa Tirana International Airport for at least 30 minutes.

Police said the cause of the explosion was not immediately clear, but that terrorism was not suspected.

The office of Prime Minister Sali Berisha said four people had been found dead near the site of the explosion. The blast was heard more than 30 miles away, and people fled from nearby villages.

Interior Minister Bujar Nishani said authorities evacuated the surrounding area and that explosives experts would clear it of any remaining ammunition.

Houses in the area were searched, and no bodies were found there, Nishani said.

Nishani said 25 people living near the depot had taken shelter in a tunnel used to store tanks, and that army and police armored vehicles were sent to rescue them.

"The most dangerous area, where it is foreseen there will be dead, is the explosion site where no one has been able to go yet," said Nishani, adding that army and police forces were some 50 meters from the site.

Berisha said that "it seems the number of the dead is considerable." He added that information was still incomplete.

The prime minister, a cardiologist, visited victims in hospitals in Tirana and said at least four of those injured were in serious condition. He said most of the injured were suffering from burns and psychological shock.

The army depot is used as a site for ammunition destruction.

Albania has some 100,000 tons of excess ammunition stored in former army depots across the country, according to Defense Minister Fatmir Mediu. He has said the country needs at least $77.8 million to destroy them.

"The problem of ammunition in Albania is one of the gravest, and a continuous threat," Berisha said. "There is a colossal, a crazy amount of them since 1945 until now."

He said he did not exclude human error in Saturday's blast, but added that the ammunition could have exploded spontaneously because of its age.

President Bamir Topi, speaking on Albanian television, called for calm, to avoid "panic and chaos."

Albin Mecaj, 22, who works at the depot, told the AP by telephone that about 80 people had been working on destroying ammunition at the time of the explosion. Mecaj, who was badly burned in the blast, said that usually about 120 people are working there.

Houses more than a mile away were damaged by the blast.

The surrounding area lost power after the explosion, and police shut down the highway between Tirana and the seaside town of Durres, 20 miles west of Tirana. E-mail to a friend

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