Kazakhstan explosion: Four killed, dozens injured after blasts at military facility

Kazakhstan Defense Minister Nurlan Yermekbayev on August 27 said that four servicemen were killed and a dozen injured in a series of explosions in the southern Kazakh city of Taraz. According to Russian broadcaster RT, the powerful blasts wounded a total of 28 people, who are now being treated in hospital. The blasts began Thursday at a defence ministry ammunition warehouse in Taraz, forcing authorities to evacuate nearby villages. 

According to Al Jazeera, the blasts followed a fire at the facility, deputy defence minister Ruslan Shpekbayev said on Thursday. Separately, traffic and railway officials said that they were closing off a road and a railway passing through the region. In a series of tweets, Kazakhstan President Qasym-Jomart Toqayev said that at least 30 of the wounded were military servicemen or emergency workers and the incident was being investigated. 

“There is an operational headquarters for the elimination of the consequences of the fire. A criminal case was initiated. Mobilized units of the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Emergencies, the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The railway service has been temporarily suspended,” the President said in a tweet. 

“Zhambyl region was visited by the Ministers of Defense, Emergency Situations and the Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs. It was decided to evacuate residents of nearby villages. About 30 employees of the regional emergency department and the military were injured,” he added in another post. 

Four villages evacuated 

The defence ministry also informed that residents of four villages, including one of 250 people less than a kilometre from the site of the blast, were being evacuated. The explosion had taken place not far from a major road connecting provincial centre Taraz to Almaty, the country’s business hub and biggest city. “The explosions stopped over time, but the fire continues,” the defence ministry informed. 

Meanwhile, it is worth mentioning that back in 2019, four people were killed and dozens injured in a similar accident in the Kazakh town of Arys in the adjacent Turkestan region. Blasts at a munitions depot forced authorities to evacuate the whole town of approximately 44,000 people. That recent blast was the third lethal explosion in the town’s vicinity in the space of a decade.

(Image: AP/Instagram)