Huge blasts in a seized Iranian weapons cache at a Greek Cypriot naval base in the south of the Mediterranean island killed at least 12 people, state media says.
The explosions on Monday devastated the adjacent Vassiliko power station - the island's largest which accounts for almost 50 per cent of supply - triggering electricity outages across large areas of Cyprus.
They also caused massive damage to homes in the nearby village of Mari, forcing the evacuation of its population of 150 people.
The state CNA news agency said the death toll might rise as an unverified number of people were still posted as missing at the blast site which had been reduced to scorched earth.
Both CNA and public radio reported that Greek Cypriot National Guard commanders had expressed growing concern in recent weeks over the conditions of storage of the Iranian arms cache seized from a Cyprus-flagged ship headed for Syria in 2009.
Firefighters were called to tackle a small fire in the storage area at 4.24am and the explosions followed at 5.50am, public radio reported.
Five firefighters were among the dead, who also included four National Guard members and two sailors. There was no immediate word on the identity of the 12th fatality.
A total of 59 people were injured in the blast, the health ministry said. Three of those were undergoing emergency surgery for serious injuries.
An AFP correspondent saw magazine casings, shrapnel and other debris from the explosion littered throughout the village of Mari. Windows and doors were blown in, some roofs had collapsed and structural damage was widespread.
Debris was hurled over a radius of as much as three kilometres from the seat of the blast in the Evangelos Florakis naval base between Mari and the fishing village of Zygi further west, the correspondent reported.
Hundreds of trees on nearby hillsides were flattened by the force of the blast and several of the generator buildings and fuel tanks at the Vassiliko plant were reduced to shells.
Virtually every window was blown in Zygi, a village whose seafront fish restaurants are popular with locals and the many tourists who frequent the resort island.
National Guard chief Petros Tsaliklides told public radio that the blasts struck among containers of Iranian munitions seized from Cypriot-flagged vessel M/V Monchegorsk in 2009.
It was intercepted in the eastern Mediterranean en route to Syria in January that year and, after repeated searches, its cargo was eventually seized.
A UN Security Council panel concluded that March that the shipment was in clear violation of an arms embargo against Iran adopted as part of UN sanctions imposed over Tehran's controversial nuclear program and the seized weapons were put into storage.
Luckily I wasn't there. The powers in all houses in Cyprus turns off sometimes, even in my house which is in Ayia Napa.
R.I.P
Portal 
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