MOSCOW: One person was killed and dozens more were injured Wednesday after a massive explosion tore through a Russian warehouse northeast of the capital Moscow, officials said.
Video shared by state media showed a bright ball of flames burst on the horizon, followed by a shockwave that blew out the windows in surrounding buildings.
The warehouse in the city of Sergiyev Posad was rented by a private company and used to store pyrotechnics, Moscow region governor Andrey Vorobyov said.
The city administration said one person had been killed, while the governor reported more than 50 people had sought medical help.
Firefighters could be seen spraying water on the smouldering ruins of a building, as search dogs and rescuers combed through the scorched wreckage.
“The glass fell too, and everything,” said one hospitalised man in a video shared by the governor.
“I managed to get away. I don’t know where it came from, why. We came out of the workshop — there was smoke everywhere.”
The cause of the blast was not immediately clear. Investigators said they had opened a criminal case into suspected violations of industrial safety.
Accidental fires are common in Russia, where hundreds of blazes are recorded each year due to ageing infrastructure and non-compliance with often-lax safety standards.
The explosion came as Russian officials remained on high alert over Ukrainian drone attacks targeting military infrastructure.