Three arrested as hope wanes for missing in Albania ammo blast

Mar 18, 2008, 16:39 GMT

Tirana - Albanian police arrested three people Tuesday in connection with the huge blast in a munitions depot near the capital which left 17 confirmed and some 100 feared dead, reports said.

Five people linked to the clean-out of ordnance from the depot at Gerdec, 14 kilometres from Tirana, were brought in for questioning and three were arrested, reports said.

Those arrested, among them the owners of the company sub- contracted by a US-based firm to carry out the operation, were facing charges of neglecting of safety guidelines which may have led to the explosion on Saturday.

Defence Minister Fatmir Mediu resigned on Monday over the incident, 'citing moral and professional obligations' and offering full cooperation to investigating prosecutors.

So far 17 bodies have been found, two of them on Tuesday, near the 50-metre crater which is what is left of one of the four storage depots in the compound after the blast.

Hope was waning that some 100 people - who worked at the site and remain missing after being caught at the centre of the explosion - may have survived in the still inaccessible compound tunnels.

Prime Minister Sali Berisha proclaimed Tuesday a day of mourning for the victims, ordering flags to fly at half mast and a minute of silence.

The depot exploded as Albanian workers were deactivating and cleaning out ordnance piled up over the decades of Albania's Communist regime - much of it decades-old imports from the USSR and China.

As part of its bid for NATO membership, Albania has committed itself to the de-commission of the piles of ammunition, estimated at up to 100,000 tons of ordnance in ageing, unsafe storages nationwide.

Berisha said Monday that he did not expect the Gerdec tragedy to harm Albania's chance of receiving an invitation to join NATO at the Bucharest summit on April 2-4.