Fire at munitions depot in Melitopil region forces evacuation of nearly 7,000 (05/23/04)

Fire at munitions depot in Melitopil region forces evacuation of nearly 7,000

by Vasyl Pawlowsky
Special to The Ukrainian Weekly

KYIV - At about 1 p.m. on May 6, a fire broke out and old artillery shells stored at the 275th artillery munitions depot near the village of Novobohdanivka, Melitopil raion of Zaporizhzhia Oblast, began to explode. The danger posed by an overfilled munitions depot on fire forced the evacuation of 6,963 inhabitants of neighboring villages found within a 10-kilometer radius of the munitions depot.

One military officer was killed; his family name was listed by the Defense Ministry as Panchenko. Four others died as an indirect result of the incident, and four were hospitalized.

Ukraine's Emergency Situations Minister Hryhorii Reva stated in a report to the Verkhovna Rada on May 11 that the explosions and fire that occurred at a munitions depot were caused by violations of fire safety regulations, in particular, smoking by personnel near a site where munitions were stored.

However, Minister of Defense Yevhen Marchuk said the same day that while negligence by the depot's management could have been a cause of the fire, he did not rule out foul play.

"This depot was working with several commercial firms. A dispute arose over a sum of 2.5 million hrv, and the Defense Ministry and the General Staff carried out a check in April," he explained. "An audit was ordered, which should have been completed on May 15. So, the explosion occurred just 10 days before the completion of the audit. What's more, the explosion occurred about two days after law enforcement bodies began to question the service personnel and businessmen who were cooperating."

Mr. Marchuk added that he was confident the investigation would quickly identify those responsible. "I think that they will quickly work their way through all the versions, since all those who allowed this to happen at the local level are alive and have been detained," he said.

He underscored that safety measures are still so lacking in this area of the military, even after considerable clean-up work had taken place over the last year, that accidents and explosions could occur at any one of Ukraine's 184 munitions depots at any time. Many of these depots are from 10 to 20 percent over their capacity. In the case of the Novobohdanivka facility, where this accident took place, there were 800 more railway cars of munitions than allowable by regulation, stated Mr. Marchuk.

Much of Ukraine's stored munitions were inherited from the Soviet Union and today pose one of the biggest problems faced by the Ukrainian military. Mr. Marchuk pointed out that when he took the reins of the Defense Ministry, many ammunition rounds were openly scattered about the grounds of munitions depots and some had lain on the ground for so long that they were partially covered by dirt and debris. He added that in order to bring all the depots to a safe level expenditures of 889 million hrv would be required.

The disposal and recycling of all of these munitions has become "problem No. 1' for the Ukrainian military," Mr. Marchuk added.

In an interview on Hromadske Radio, Serhii Zhurets, an expert from the Center for Army, Conversion and Disarmament Studies, stated that the stockpile inherited from the USSR is equivalent to about 320,000 tons of munitions that are not stored safely, and every year approximately 20 tons are added to this stockpile. At the rate Ukraine is recycling its stockpile of such munitions, it will take 40 years to safety recycle them, explained Mr. Zhurets.

Twenty-six fire trucks battled the blaze. Heavy rain during the night assisted in dousing the fire, and reduced the intensity of the fire and the frequency at which the artillery shells were exploding. The fire also threatened a number of storage areas at the base including one that housed landmines. The blaze was finally extinguished on May 9.

Ukraine's vice prime minister and head of the State Committee for Manmade, Environmental Security and Emergency Situations, Andriy Kliuyev, announced on May 7 that the city of Melitopol had already received 4 million of the allotted 7 million hrv for the clean-up operations, though at the same time Mr. Kliuyev dismissed rumors that any chemical, nuclear, explosive substances or ammonia were stored at the depot. However, earlier reports from the Defense Ministry had noted that some of the armaments contained radioactive materials.

Mr. Kliuyev called the damage from the blast insignificant as windows were broken, roofs collapsed and doors were broken. He went on to say that nearly 3 kilometers of railroad had to be completely rebuilt. Other reports claimed that the railway station in a neighboring village had been leveled by the blast.

While state officials said they would await further investigation before making official conclusions as to what caused the ammunition to ignite, Ukraine's Procurator General Hennadii Vasyliev wasted no time in opening a criminal case against the military's top brass, commenting that the blast at the munitions depot was the result of criminal negligence by military leaders. He said that Ministry of Defense leaders, including Mr. Marchuk, had continuously ignored reports from the Procurator General's Office that pointed to gross violations of regulations regarding the storage of munitions and weapons.

As a result of the explosion, President Leonid Kuchma signed an executive order creating a special commission headed by Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych that will inspect all military bases to identify how arms, ammunition and dangerous explosives are stored. The commission was to report its findings to President Kuchma by May 20.

Prime Minister Yanukovych, who visited the Novobohdanivka site after the fires had been brought under control, said the National Security and Defense Council would decide the question of whether Mr. Marchuk should remain in his post as defense minister.

Speaking to evacuees of the area, the prime minister said all those responsible for the incident would be severely punished.

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