At least 12 people were killed and more than 20 injured when a blast ripped through a barracks for elite troops in Chechnya, Russian military and local emergency ministry officials said early on Wednesday.
The explosion late on Tuesday collapsed the two-storey barracks of the Vostok Battalion in Kurchaloi in the east of the war-torn province. Armed troops sealed off the site on Wednesday.
”Two theories are being worked on in the explosion, including a gas leak and the detonation of explosive material,” a spokesperson for Russia’s military prosecutor was quoted as saying by Interfax news agency.
Chechnya’s prosecutor Valery Kuznetsov also said that both possibilities were being considered, but that the gas leak version was being given priority.
The Vostok unit is comprised of ethnic-Chechens, but subordinate to the Russian army’s secretive Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) and is considered key in the brutal counter-insurgency war against Chechen separatists and militant Islamists.
There were conflicting accounts of casualties.
Kuznetsov was quoted by Interfax as saying that 12 people were killed and 22 had been hospitalised for their wounds, although other reports quoted between 20 and 28 injured. The local interior ministry said there had been 13 fatalities, RIA-Novosti news agency reported.
Itar-Tass news agency reported there had been about 40 people in the building at the time of the blast and that the 12 dead included 11 men and one woman.
A member of the Vostok unit who asked not to be named said the victims were mostly members of a special company within the battalion and that many of the wounded suffered burns.
Initial reports on Russian agencies said that no remains of gas containers or explosives had been found, however investigators said they thought that the blast originated in the kitchen, suggesting a leak in the gas mains.
An estimated 100 000 people have been killed in two attempts by Russia to restore control over Chechnya, a tiny Muslim area in the turbulent North Caucasus region, over the past 11 years.
According to official statistics about 10 000 Russian servicemen have been killed, although human rights campaigners say that the real figure may be at least twice that.
Russian military and police units composed of ethnic-Chechens play an increasingly important role in the anti-insurgency campaign, as Moscow seeks to shift responsibility onto loyal local forces.
The Vostok Battalion is seen as particularly effective in tracking down guerrillas and fighting in their mountainous strongholds. However, such units have come under fire for alleged human rights abuses including torture, illegal executions and kidnapping.
The Vostok Battalion was officially accused of carrying out a raid last June on the village of Borozdinovskaya in which an elderly man was murdered, 11 other civilians disappeared and dozens of others were beaten. – AFP