Massive explosions and a blaze at a military ammunition depot in central Ukraine have forced authorities to evacuate 24,000 people and close airspace over the region, officials have said.

The blasts occurred late on Tuesday local time at a military base near Kalynivka in the Vynnytsya region, 270 kilometres west of Kiev, Ukrainian emergencies service said in a statement.

One person was injured, it said.

The military said rescue teams were evacuating nearby villages in the region.

Arriving in the region hours later, Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman said “external factors” were behind the incident.

Social media users reported hearing loud explosions as far away as the capital Kiev.

Local media said the explosion was the fourth ammunition depot explosion in the past two years. </s> A powerful explosion is seen in the ammunition depot at a military base in Kalynivka, Ukraine early Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2017. Ukrainian officials say they have evacuated more than 30,000 people. (Credit: Efrem Lukatsky)

KALYNIVKA, Ukraine (AP) — A huge fire at an ammunition depot in central Ukraine has set off a series of explosions and prompted an evacuation of thousands of people, officials said Wednesday. The prime minister hinted it was possible sabotage by Ukraine's enemies.

Authorities evacuated 30,000 people from the town of Kalynivka, 190 kilometers (120 miles) southwest of the capital, Kiev, and turned off the electricity and gas supply after the depot at a military base there caught fire late on Tuesday.

The powerful explosions late Tuesday created massive fireballs that lit up the night sky. Hours later, smoke was seen billowing Wednesday morning. Four residential buildings were damaged by fire but no casualties have been reported.

Local media reported that about 188,000 tons of munitions were kept at the depot including rockets for the Grad multiple grenade launchers.

Andriy Ageyev, spokesman of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, told the 112 television station that munitions at the military base in Kalynivka were still detonating at the military base late Wednesday morning. But Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman, who arrived to the area early Wednesday, said on local television the situation is under control.

Olena Gitlyanska, spokesman for the Ukrainian Security Service, told the Unian news agency that they are treating the fire as sabotage. She didn't provide further details.

Speaking at an urgent session of the Cabinet, Groysman on Wednesday also suggested it was possible sabotage, saying that Ukraine is at war and that its expects that its enemies "will do all they can to make us weak."

Government forces have been fighting Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine since April 2014 in a conflict that has left more than 10,000 killed and displaced more than a million.

President Petro Poroshenko on Wednesday morning called for an urgent meeting of the country's top brass to discuss the situation.

In a similar incident in March, a fire at a military depot in Ukraine's east raged for hours and prompted an evacuation of over 20,000 people. </s> Massive explosions and a blaze at a military ammunition depot in central Ukraine have forced authorities to evacuate 30,000 people and close airspace over the region, officials have said.

The blasts occurred late on Tuesday local time at a military base near Kalynivka in the Vynnytsya region, 270 kilometres west of Kiev, Ukrainian emergencies service said in a statement.

Four residential buildings were damaged by the fire and one person was injured, but no casualties had been reported.

The military said rescue teams were evacuating nearby villages in the region, bussing more than 30,000 people out of the area.

Arriving in the region hours later, Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman said "external factors" were behind the incident.

Authorities said they turned off the electricity and gas supply to the town.

Social media users reported hearing loud explosions as far away as the capital Kiev.

Local media said the explosion was the fourth ammunition depot explosion in the past two years.

The cause of the fire is under investigation. </s> More than 30,000 people have been evacuated after a blaze ripped through an ammunition depot in Ukraine in what Kiev authorities called an act of "sabotage".

More than 30,000 people have been evacuated after a blaze ripped through an ammunition depot in Ukraine in what Kiev authorities called an act of "sabotage".

The blaze at a military base near Kalynivka in the Vinnytsa region, about 180km southwest of Kiev, is the second massive explosion at a weapons storage site this year. Footage showed pillars of flame and mushroom clouds curling above the base as explosions occurred every few seconds. Rockets could be seen launching at random into the skies around the base.

Authorities said yesterday morning that two people had been injured.

Volodymyr Groysman, the Ukrainian prime minister, flew to the scene overnight on the instructions of Petro Poroshenko, the president.

"This is the arsenal of the Ukrainian army, and I think it was no accident that it was destroyed," Mr Groysman said in televised remarks.

The Ukrainian army said on its Facebook page the fire began at about 10pm local time on Tuesday.

About 100 conscript soldiers were evacuated.

Photos showed several houses and vehicles destroyed.

The arms depot was one of the largest in Ukraine, and housed thousands of artillery shells, bullets, and rockets.

It follows a similar explosion that killed one person at a site in Balakliya, in the eastern Kharkiv region, in March.

The government blamed that incident on Russia or the separatist forces it arms and supplies in the neighbouring Luhansk and Donetsk regions.

Indo Sport </s> KIEV, Sept 27 (Reuters) - Massive explosions and a blaze at a military ammunition depot in central Ukraine forced authorities to evacuate 24,000 people and close airspace over the region, officials said on Wednesday.

The blasts occurred late on Tuesday at a military base near Kalynivka in the Vynnytsya region, 270 kilometres (168 miles) west of Kiev, Ukrainian emergencies service said in a statement.

One person was injured, it said.

Arriving in the region hours later, Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman said "external factors" were behind the incident. (Reporting by Pavel Polityuk; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore) </s> Smoke and flames rise over a warehouse storing ammunition for multiple rocket launcher systems at a military base in the town of Kalynivka in Vinnytsia region, Ukraine September 27, 2017. REUTERS/Gleb Garanich

KIEV (Reuters) - Massive explosions and a blaze at a military ammunition depot in central Ukraine forced authorities to evacuate 24,000 people and close airspace over the region, officials said on Wednesday.

The blasts occurred late on Tuesday at a military base near Kalynivka in the Vynnytsya region, 270 kilometers (168 miles) west of Kiev, Ukrainian emergencies service said in a statement.

One person was injured, it said.

Arriving in the region hours later, Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman said "external factors" were behind the incident. </s> One of Ukraine’s largest arms depots caught fire and exploded in what prosecutors said Wednesday was a likely act of “sabotage” that forced the evacuation of more than 30,000 people.

It was the second major incident affecting a large Ukrainian weapons warehouse this year.

The Ukraine military prosecutor’s office said it had opened an investigation into “sabotage at a military facility” in the central Vinnytsia region.

“We have to learn to defend our strategic facilities from sabotage groups,” President Petro Poroshenko said during an emergency evening meeting of his top military commanders.

“Are their any other versions?” he asked in comments issued by his office.

The pro-Western leader’s statement hinted strongly at possible involvement by Russia or separatist militias in eastern Ukraine.

But Poroshenko made no direct mention of the Kremlin and added only vaguely that “we will no longer put up with these events.

Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman also seemed to imply Kremlin involvement in the explosions, which shook the town of Kalynivka, about 175 km (110 miles) southwest of Kiev.

“This is the arsenal of the Ukrainian army, and I think it was no accident that it was destroyed,” Groysman said from the scene of the blasts.

Initial reports mentioned no fatalities and only two minor injuries from the raging explosions of heavy munitions and air defense missiles at the site.

The Vinnytsia regional administration more than doubled the military’s initial estimate of the amount of munitions stored in the depot to 188,000 tons.

General staff spokesman Vladyslav Seleznyov told AFP that the arms storage warehouse was “one of the country’s largest.

Kalynivka’s 20,000 residents largely kept off the streets as missiles and shells shot off in all directions and shattered parts of people’s homes.

“Some homes had their windows and doors completely blown out,” she said.

The defense ministry reported that the various shells and missiles had ceased exploding and the situation had been brought under control by Wednesday night.

The Ukrainian army’s high command wrote on Facebook that the fire broke out at around 10:00 p.m. (1900 GMT) Tuesday.

The flames caused artillery shells at the warehouse to explode one after the other in harrowing orange balls of fire that lit up the night sky and shook the ground.

The national police said more than 30,000 people had been evacuated from areas in the immediate vicinity of the depot.

“In addition, 180 patients were evacuated from Vinnytsia area hospitals,” Ukraine’s emergency ministry said.

Officials also shut down surrounding airspace as a precaution to prevent exploding missiles from hitting passing commercial jets.

In March, a major arms warehouse explosion killed one person in the eastern town of Balakliya.

At the time Kiev authorities pointed the finger at Moscow and Russian-backed militias fighting Ukrainian troops in a war which broke out in April 2014 and has claimed more than 10,000 lives.

Some officials in Kiev then mooted the possibility that the March fire was caused by explosives dropped from a drone.

Both Moscow and the Russian-backed insurgents dismissed the charge outright, brushing it off as propaganda.

Vinnytsia lies nearly 700 km west of the war zone.

Russia vehemently denies plotting and backing Ukraine’s eastern conflict and refers to the fighting as a “civil war” — a term that particularly irritates Kiev. </s> YOU JUST SAW:

A woman and her pet dog wait for evacuation in the town of Kalynivka 20 kilometers (13 miles) from the site of the ammunition depot blast, west of Kiev, Ukraine Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2017. More than 30,000 residents have been evacuated after ammunitio </s> Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption A series of explosions could be seen at the dump throughout Wednesday night

Some 20,000 people are being evacuated after a series of explosions at a massive arms depot in eastern Ukraine described by officials as sabotage.

The base in Balakliya, near Kharkiv, is around 100km (60 miles) from fighting against Russian-backed separatists.

The dump is used to store thousands of tonnes of ammunition including missiles and artillery weapons.

Rescue teams are overseeing a huge evacuation effort for people living in the city and nearby villages.

The total area of the dump spans more than 350 hectares, the military says.

Everyone within a 10km (6 miles) radius of the dump is being evacuated, the Interfax news agency quoted an aide to President Petro Poroshenko as saying.

Munitions from the depot are used to supply military units in the conflict zone in nearby Luhansk and Donetsk, reports say.

Image copyright EPA Image caption A huge cloud of smoke could be seen billowing above the ammunition depot of the Ukrainian armed forces on Thursday

Image copyright DSNS Image caption By daylight smoke billowed across the sky in Balakliya

The authorities are investigating various ways the explosions may have been caused, Defence Minister Stepan Poltorak said, including the possibility of an explosive device being dropped from a drone.

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A drone was reported to have been used an earlier attempt to set the facility on fire in December 2015.

Mr Poltorak said that there were no reports that civilians or serviceman had been killed or injured in the latest incident and that airspace had been closed within a 50km (31 miles) radius of Balakliya.

More than 9,700 people have died in the conflict which erupted in 2014 when Russia annexed Ukraine's southern Crimea peninsula. Pro-Russian rebels later launched an insurgency in the east.
Thirty thousand people are evacuated from Kalynivka, Ukraine, following an explosion in an ammunition dump 180 kilometres (110 mi) southwest of Kiev. The Government of Ukraine blames sabotage.