Fires continue in army depots in Ukraine

Firefighters from the Ukrainian Emergency Situations Ministry and Defense Ministry continue to fight fires at the ammunition depots of the 275th army base near Novobogdanovka, a village in the Zaporozhye region.

A spokesman for the press service of the Ukrainian Emergency Situations Ministry told RIA Novosti Wednesday that on Tuesday about 600 metric tons of water were used to put out three fires.

Experts from the Defense Ministry examined the 321 square kilometer area damaged by the fire and discovered 8,300 explosive objects.

The fire at the base, where more than 90,000 metric tons of artillery ammunition was kept, started on May 6. The ammunition for multiple launch systems began to explode and fragments of ammunition scattered up to 40 kilometers away.

The prosecutor's office has established that the fire was caused by a gross violation of industrial safety measures - servicemen smoked where the ammunition was being stored and one of them set a sack of gunpowder on fire.

A guard at the base died of a wound from a fragment of ammunition. Four civilians died of heart attacks. The fire caused the Ukrainian Defense Ministry an estimated 2.252 billion grivnas (about $425 million) in damages and the population faces damages of 1.496 million grivnas (about $282,000).