(Tashkent) The explosion in the night from Wednesday to Thursday of a warehouse in Tashkent, capital of Uzbekistan, left at least one dead and more than 160 injured, according to the authorities of this Central Asian country, assuring that the nearby airport was operating “normally”.
“In total, we have recorded 163 victims in this accident, including 138 lightly injured who left the hospital, 24 injured still hospitalized in satisfactory condition, while a teenager born in 2006 died,” said the Ministry of Health. on Telegram.
According to the same source, the fire broke out in the warehouse of a company in the customs area of Tashkent airport, which, according to the official Uzbek news agency UZa, is operating “normally”.
A spokesperson for the Ministry of Emergency Situations, who blamed lightning for the explosion, told AFP that “the fire broke out after an explosion.”
Videos posted on social networks show an impressive ball of fire in a night sky.
The windows of many houses in the surrounding area were blown out and interiors damaged, noted an AFP journalist on site, while ambulances continued to evacuate the injured.
Explosions continued to ring out a few hours after the start of the fire, which firefighters were battling.
“I woke up at night, thought it was an earthquake, then saw the fire. My son was injured in the leg,” Moustafo Koutepov, a 72-year-old retiree who lives nearby and whose house was hit, told AFP.
“I ask the authorities to compensate for the damage as winter approaches, I do not have the means to repair it alone,” he added.
As for Nourgali Nourguembetov, whose house located about fifty meters from the explosion was hit, he asks to be “rehoused in a safe place”.
Uzbekistan is the most populous of the former Soviet republics of Central Asia. As in the rest of the former USSR, fires are frequent due to outdated equipment and non-compliance with safety standards, but such an explosion remains rare.