12 killed in blast at Cyprus navy base: defence minister, army chief quit

An explosion at a military base killed at least 12 people in Cyprus on Monday, blew out the windows of nearby homes, knocked out the Mediterranean island's largest power station and rained metal on a motorway. Cyprus's defence minister and army chief quit hours after confiscated Iranian armaments exploded at the Evangelos Florakis navy base on the southern coast of the island, a popular holiday destination.
A government spokesman ruled out sabotage. The blast, which also wounded 62 people, shredded the outer walls of two large multi-storey buildings and was felt for miles in olive groves and farming villages around the base. The olive groves were dotted with white sheets, thought to cover victims.
"My tractor jumped about half a metre high," said farmer Nicos Aspros, who was out tilling his field at the time of the blast. "There isn't a house in the community which hasn't been damaged." Windows and doors of Eleni Toubi's small home were blown out and the roof was damaged in Mari, a village separated from the base by a small hill.
"It was huge. I fell out of bed and ran to check on the kids," she said. The Iranian armaments were the cargo from the Monchegorsk, a ship Cyprus intercepted in 2009 sailing from Iran to Syria in violation of United Nations sanctions on Iran.
Military sources said they believed all 98 containers of the armaments, which were kept exposed in scorching temperatures, went up in the blast which badly damaged the Vassilikos power plant which provides the island with half its electricity. In the capital Nicosia, 65 km (40 miles) to the north-east, residents woke to power cuts and communications were patchy because mobile networks were jammed on the island. Fire-fighters had been called to the area to put out a blaze before the blast. All victims were Cypriots.
The government spokesman, Stefanos Stefanou, gave no details of the storage conditions. He did not comment on reports that the containers had expanded in the heat, or that authorities had been dousing the area with water to keep temperatures down. He said President Demetris Christofias had accepted the resignations of Defence Minister Costas Papacostas and army chief Petros Tsalikidis.
Cyprus took the munitions material in after pressure from the United States in January 2009. In an account of the incident disclosed by WikiLeaks, the US embassy in Nicosia described Cypriot participation in the exercise as "half-hearted". The explosion could increase pressure on a government under pressure to slash deficits to stave further cuts by credit ratings agencies. The island was hit by rolling power cuts as authorities attempted to juggle demand in a peak season. The agriculture ministry said all water desalination plants would shut.