MOSCOW – The Russian health ministry said 79 people were injured when several blasts at the explosives plant Kristall shook the central Russian town of Dzerzhinsk on Saturday.
City authorities said the blasts, around midday (0900 GMT) were heard all over the town of more than 230,000 residents and shock waves smashed or damaged windows in around 180 buildings.
The Kristall plant said its director was fired “literally a day before” the blasts for violating industrial safety rules earlier in the year. He was blamed for an explosion that occurred in April.
The Kristall scientific institute is one of the major Russian developers of explosives technology for military and civilian use. (Reuters)
