TIRANA (AFP) — Powerful explosions rocked an army munitions depot near Vora, 12 kilometres (eight miles) north of the capital Tirana on Saturday, witnesses reported, injuring at least 155 people, mostly civilians.
Many of the casualties arriving at local hospitals for treatment were women and children covered with blood and one doctor appealed for local people to donate blood to help the casualties.
The blasts, which occurred at intervals for around an hour, blew in all the windows of the terminal building at the city's airport, just over a kilometre from the base.
The initial blast was so loud it was heard in neighbouring Macedonia, 150 kilometres away.
Military experts were disassembling the shells at the time of the first explosion. They were assisted by employees of an American company contracted by NATO to help Albanian army eliminate the munition.
The US embassy in Tirana, contacted by telephone, was unable to confirm that there were foreigners at the scene at the moment of first explosion.
Earlier, witnesses told AFP that soldiers were in the process of storing shells in the depot when the first explosion took place.
Prime Minister Sali Berisha told journalists that the situation was "very serious and very alarming," adding that there were thought to be "many injured."
"At least 155 people were hospitalised, 70 at the hospital in Durres (west from Tirana), 70 at the military hospital in Tirana and 15 in a civilian hospital in Tirana," Albanian Health Minister Nard Ndoka told reporters.
"Those injured who are hospitalised were coming from the neighbouring villages, because ambulance have not yet managed to approach the site of the incident as the explosions were still going on," he said.
Most of the casualties were civilians being brought in by ambulances which followed each other in quick succession, while others came in private cars.
Many were women and children covered with blood.
A doctor at the hospital compared the flood of people with "a toll of war."
"The situation is serious," he said, urging citizens to donate blood, "which could run short."
"We have sent defence ministry helicopters and we have begun to evacuate the residents of villages neighbouring the depot," Berisha said.
The depot is located outside Vora, next to the village of Gerdec.
All windows shattered at the airport Rinas-Tirana, located more than a kilometer (mile) from the scene of the blast, while several cars were damaged.
The airport was immediately closed down and all flights cancelled until further notice.
The blasts were so powerful that they were heard in neighbouring Macedonia, prompting dozens of citizens to alert the police there, believing the explosions were in the country itself, authorities in Skopje said.
In the western part of Macedonia, some 150 kilometres from the blast site inside Albania, windows were shattered at a number of houses, the police spokesman Ivo Kotevski told AFP.
"A lot of people reported very strong blasts to us, but not a single incident was registered" in Macedonia, Kotevski added.
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