Eight dead in Cyprus military base blast

reply to post by lenya007

I think this is more likely to have been unfortunate errors leading to a calamity.

Reuters report of the disaster:
Link

A BBC report BBC link

Maybe there wasn't a clear end game in the planning, and the expolsives were put the only place they could put them, near a naval jetty and naval base, the blast radius if Something Went Wrong was not correctly calculated, because they didn't know exactly what was in the containers, the constant hot/cold cyling in the open storage and previous handling weaked some of the containers, and perhaps at 0420 local time the correct pressure/fuel/air mixture was achieved to commence ignition in one, and the rest is tragedy.

The power station supplied about half of Cyprus's electricity. Link to Wikipedia follows:
Vasilikos Power Station
It was a conventional plant using heavy fuel oil for the main sets and kerosene for a gas turbine gen set. The vapour in both fuel tanks is flammable and may have contibuted to the second conflagration. The shock waves will have taken out the HV power distribution lines and the fire/explosion will have taken out most of the electrical switchgear and instrumentation.
The chances of any usefull electricty generation are unlikely imho, the buildings look like Fukushima, and the military base was fubar'd. No wonder the Cypriot Premier compared this to a Biblical disaster.

The BBC's Eastern Mediterranean Station was also damaged. This transmitter station broadcasts the BBC World Service to many countries and millions of people in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.
Link
Wikipedia about BBC World Service
I have no doubt the engineers are working H24 to repair the facility.

If another illegal explosives ship is arrested let's hope it is towed to deep water well away from civilisation and a controlled demolition carried out!!

My heart goes out to the people of Cyprus.



BTW Apologies for firing a blank first time round, browser crashed!

reply to post by Bordon81


I thought it was bound for Syria but most weapons for Hizbollah via Iran usually go through Syria first then on to Lebanon.

reply to post by cerebralassassins


Iran does have a beef with Greece because Greece and Israel have become quite chummy since relations between Turkey and Israel reached an all time low.

Originally posted by bluemirage5
reply to post by cerebralassassins

 

Iran does have a beef with Greece because Greece and Israel have become quite chummy since relations between Turkey and Israel reached an all time low.

well that was expected since turkey decided to rant on europe and europeans although it was told by the u.s. to chill out with the european's but some reason it assumed and is slowly undertaking a role of the peace keeper for the middle east, sadly they did not count or should i say they did not calculate the weight of israel and its pull within the u.s. and europe.

im no explosives expert but how far away was the power station from the plant? couldnt the shock wave of a power station or something at said station blowing up possibly cause a chain reaction of munitions that seem to have been stored on hot cargo containers in the sun for a long time i mean dont all those factors add up to a possible explination? i mean arent alot of explosives and arty rounds and what not shock sensitive?

reply to post by KilrathiLG


based on the reports, the initial blast originated from the munitions and due to that explosion a secondary explosion occurred within the power station. Apparently there is a 50 meter tall man made mountain around the power station that absorbed the greater part of the explosion but did not stop the domino effect.

UPDATE

Cyprus Navy Chief killed in the blasts

www.bbc.co.uk...

Coincidence? or something more sinister?

reply to post by cerebralassassins


ah thanks for clearing that up this does seem fishy then guess we will have to wait for more news or there report getting published or something

reply to post by Skerrako


I'm thinking........ok......was this an intentional "accident" ? I'm still sitting on the fence on this one for another day or two until a full and thorough investigation is well underway or completed.

Originally posted by Skerrako
UPDATE

Cyprus Navy Chief killed in the blasts

www.bbc.co.uk...

Coincidence? or something more sinister?

this is not good...not good at all...I guess this explains the closed meetings between cypriot military and intelligence branch with the Iranian ambassador. The same process was also followed in greece and shortly later military and intelligence officers along with undisclosed u.s. officials were airborne heading to cyprus.


edit: to add to Skerrako that DNA testing is currently going on right now as we speak cross referencing the dead bodies with 1st and 2nd generation of the dead family members as to make sure they are who they are. --- Obviously they want to see who is who....very odd !

The cost of the power plant is estimated at 2 billion euros and the repair stage will take up to 6 months. They are currently in cabinet looking at buying a power plant that resides on a floating platform since the other power stations cannot handle the current load that is needed as output.

The industrial industry has suffered a major blow as constant power outages have forced them to close and only a small portion of its industrial structure will only be able to operate.

The government announced the compulsory use of generators within the industrial sector.

Iran fires Missiles Into Indian Ocean (Reuters)

www.reuters.com...

Seams it took place right under the noses of the US!

www.spacewar.com...

There is definately a game of Cat and Mouse going on - Iran will have noticed how North Korea gets aways with it so...... testing the waters eh.

Its a bit strange that the base commander was with the head of the Cypriot navy and just so happened to be in the firing line of a group of containers containing explosives, that just so happened to blow up due to a small bush fire nearby.
Now this is either a strange series of coincidences, all of which seem to have happened to come together even though there is little chance of any of them happening at all, and if so, this is a VERY bad accident, or there is more to it than we know.
I usually like to try and debunk conspiracies but as i have spent some time in the area where this has happened, and i know how things work on (some of) the military bases out there, I cannot see how all of these things managed to happen at once.
If there had been any suspected danger, there is no way the head of the navy and the base commander should have been anywhere near it.
Out of the 15 people that have been reported to have been killed, 5 were firefighters, which isnt ,much of a surprise if they were fighting a fire, and 2 were very high up in the chain of command.
I can say from experience that if there had been small fires nearby, the lowest ranks would be out there with firebeaters, helping the fire brigade. Not the base commander and head of the Cypriot navy.

reply to post by cerebralassassins


DNA tests are probally required - because this is the real wold - an explosion consuming 100s of tons of munitions turns bodies into anonymous smears

reply to post by 2012king


why is it " strange " that the base commander went to inspect the situation himself ? its what ruperts do

the fire had been burning for over 1.5 hours - in the vicinity of a munitions dump - its the commanding officers duty to be aware of thats going on under his command

as an example - read the accounts of the rendalsham UFO incident - there col Halt did not sit in his office listening to the radionet - he rounded up a team of officers and men and went to asses the situation himself

The thing i find strange is the timings. After a few years service i cannot remember seeing anybody with a high rank around before 6am.
I understand what you are saying about them checking on whats going on, but for two of the highest ranking officials in the area to be that close to a potential risk, no matter how small, just seems a bit suspect to me.
Plus just by looking at the picture of the actual containers, there doesnt seem to be anything nearby that would be big enough to burn long and hot enough to cause an explosion. to put it into perspective, those containers are huge and there has to be at least 40 feet of concrete between them and the very short grass and the odd few small bushes around them.
To me its like trying to light a firework by holding the flame a foot away from the fuse.

Just to add, if the fire had been burning in close proximity to the dump for a few hours, surely it should have been all hands on deck to ensure that the flames got nowhere near them, not just a few firefighters and the top brass on the base.

Originally posted by ignorant_ape
reply to post by 2012king

 

why is it " strange " that the base commander went to inspect the situation himself ? its what ruperts do

the fire had been burning for over 1.5 hours - in the vicinity of a munitions dump - its the commanding officers duty to be aware of thats going on under his command

as an example - read the accounts of the rendalsham UFO incident - there col Halt did not sit in his office listening to the radionet - he rounded up a team of officers and men and went to asses the situation himself

For the base commander to inspect it himself means that it requires decisions to be made for the safety of the base at the highest possible level. Now, since this was a fire that started at 4 am with no sun then why would he be there. Second of all, its interesting that the fire actually exploded the munitions before the fire fighting aircraft were scheduled to do there daily routine patrol's around high risk area's. Just wanted to point that out. But in reality this may very be one of those tragic things we often read in the news on a daily basis.

Originally posted by quedup
Iran fires Missiles Into Indian Ocean (Reuters)

www.reuters.com...

Seams it took place right under the noses of the US!

www.spacewar.com...

There is definately a game of Cat and Mouse going on - Iran will have noticed how North Korea gets aways with it so...... testing the waters eh.

edit on 11-7-2011 by quedup because: further information

Not sure how a missile fired into the inidan ocean is relevant to the cyprus issue but the a missile launch did place and if that was or was not tracked by the u.s. naval command is something we might never no.

update:

most of the dead and injured have been identified however, there is a single person who is in the i.c. ward and has not been identified. Israeli officials are on a flight to cyprus for an unknown reason other than what has been said to view that particular patient. However as reported that patient in the i.c. ward has no face or eyes due to the explosion and since exporting dna results is against cypriot law then that would allow us to assume that someone was found at the blast that was obviously not from the naval base nor was he a civil contractor or from the sounding area ( power plant or residents ).

Such a keen interest from day one by the u.s. and now israelis into a seemingly bad accident.