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Over 30 people ask for medical help after series of explosions in Samara region

Five explosions had occurred one after another at an open area of the Privolzhskiy testing ground
Photo ITAR-TASS
Photo ITAR-TASS

MOSCOW, June 18 (Itar-Tass) - More than 30 people have asked for medical help after a series of military test ground explosions in the Samara region, a spokesman for the Zaschita center of emergency medicine told Itar-Tass.

"Thirty-four people asked for medical help. Four of them have been hospitalized,” the spokesman said.

The press service of the Russian Ministry for Emergency Situations said that five explosions had occurred one after another at an open area of the Privolzhskiy testing ground for munitions which belongs to the Ministry of Industry and Commerce near the town of Chapayevsk in the Samara region. The blasts caused a fire.

People are being evacuated from populated localities situated near the testing ground, Sergei Goldshtein, the press service chief of the main department of the Interior Ministry of the Russian Federation for the Samara region, Goldshtein said.

"At present, an operation to liquidate the blasts consequences is under way. People are being evacuated from the nearby settlements,” he said.

According to Goldshtein, about 13 million of munitions are stored at depots near the testing ground.

According to preliminary reports, shells with 23 to 39 millimeters in diameter went off. About 6,000 122-millimeter shells are reportedly being stored at the depots.

"The approximate splinter range is 500 meters,” Goldshtein said.