GERDEC, Albania — A massive explosion at an Albanian army ammunition dump near Tirana Saturday killed at least five people and injured 215, including many children, authorities said. The prime minister said he feared there could be many dead.
The initial blast at the depot at Gerdec village, about six miles north of the capital, Tirana, set off a series of explosions, and ammunition continued to detonate for hours. The blast was heard as far away as the Macedonian capital of Skopje, a distance of 120 miles, and prompted a brief suspension of flights at Tirana's nearby international airport.
Houses more than a mile away from the dump were damaged by the blast.
The office of Prime Minister Sali Berisha said five people had been found dead near the site of the explosion. Berisha said that "it seems the number of the dead is considerable."
Police said the cause of the explosion was not immediately clear, but terrorism was not suspected.
Health Minister Nard Ndoka said 215 people had been injured, including many children, and that 12 of the injured were in serious condition.
Ndoka said Albania had received offers of assistance from Italy, Greece, Switzerland and many other countries to treat the injured.
Italy was sending a plane carrying medical personnel and equipment in response to an Albanian request. France and the United States have offered help and support.
In neighboring Kosovo, where most of the population is ethnic Albanian, hundreds of people lined up at a Pristina hospital to give blood, and NATO-led peacekeepers were sending blood reserves by helicopter, officials said.
In Skopje, Macedonians donated blood; Macedonian Foreign Minister Antonio Milososki was heading to Tirana to offer assistance, and donating blood himself.
Greek Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyannis said she has expressed Greece's solidarity and intention to help.
Berisha's office issued a statement quoting witnesses as saying that 110 people had been working at the dump at the time of the explosion. It said they reported that there had been a delay of about 10 minutes between the initial blast and the explosions that followed, and that many of the workers had managed to run away.
Interior Minister Bujar Nishani said authorities evacuated the surrounding area and explosives experts would clear the area of any remaining ammunition.
"The most dangerous area, where it is foreseen there will be dead, is the explosion site where none has been able to go yet," said Nishani, adding that army and police forces were some 50 yards.
Berisha, a cardiologist, visited victims in hospitals in Tirana and said most of the injured were suffering from burns and psychological shock.
The army depot is used as an ammunition destruction site.
Albania has some 100,000 tons of excess ammunition stored in former army depots across the country, according to Defense Minister Fatmir Mediu.
NATO countries, and particularly the United States, Canada and Norway, have been helping with funding for Albania to destroy the ammunition and obsolete weaponry.
"The problem of ammunition in Albania is one of the gravest, and a continuous threat," Berisha said. "There is a colossal, a crazy amount of them since 1945 until now."
He said he did not exclude human error in Saturday's blast, but added that the ammunition could have exploded spontaneously because of its age.
Albin Mecaj, 22, who works at the depot, told The Associated Press by telephone that about 80 people had been working on destroying ammunition at the time of the explosion. Mecaj, who was badly burned in the blast, said about 120 people usually work at the depot.