NICOSIA, Cyprus — A huge explosion — likely sparked by a brush fire that set light to containers of gunpowder — tore through a Cypriot National Guard naval base Monday, causing widespread damage, the Defense Ministry said. At least 10 people were feared dead.
The ministry said the explosion occurred at the Evangelos Florakis Naval Base on the Mediterranean island's southern coast at around 6 a.m. (0300GMT). State radio said the dead included two Cyprus navy sailors, two soldiers and five firefighters.
Footage broadcast on state television CyBC showed numerous damaged cars stopped along a stretch of highway near the base. One person who was in a car passing the base at the time of the explosion told CyBC that it felt like "a bomb had been dropped on the car."
CyBC said the explosion also caused numerous injuries and extensive damage to homes in villages near the naval base.
The concussion wave from the blast severely damaged the island's main power station, leading to power cuts in several areas, including the southern town of Larnaca. Authorities appealed to the public to limit their electricity consumption, which has spiked amid a three-day heatwave that has led to temperatures of about 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit).
Airport authorities said both Paphos and Larnaca airports were reducing power consumption to the minimum possible and had turned on their generators.
Cyprus Electricity Authority official Yiannis Tsouloftas said the power station would remain offline for at least the rest of the day. The island's two other smaller power stations were trying to cover electricity demand, Tsouloftas said.
"There are several parts of the island that are without power," Costas Gavrilidis, a spokesman for state power utility AHK, told state-run CyBC television.
A Defense Ministry official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation was not complete, said the blast appeared to have been caused by a brush fire that broke out nearby and spread to the base.
The fire ignited gunpowder stored in containers that Cypriot authorities confiscated in February 2009 from a ship sailing off its coast. The ship, the Cypriot-flagged Monchegorsk, had been suspected of carrying the gunpowder from Iran to Gaza.
Fire department spokesman Leonidas Leonidou said firefighters received a call at 4:27 a.m. saying the fire was inside the base and near the containers.
"Whether it started on or off the base, and how it started, we cannot say," he told the AP.
State radio quoted National Guard Chief Petros Tsalikides who was at the naval base as saying that the explosion caused a "great catastrophe."