EPTive people were injured when a natural-gas pipeline exploded in southwest Moscow early Sunday, sending flames up to 300 meters into the air, a Russian state-run news agency reported.
The injured were treated for burns, a spokesman for the emergencies ministry said, according to the RIA Novosti news agency.
The fire destroyed or damaged utility lines, leaving about 100,000 customers without telephone and Internet communication, the Russian emergencies ministry said. The fire also damaged about 30 cars.
Twenty-five firefighting teams had been sent to the scene, but the fire wasn't expected to spread, RIA Novosti said.
The fire could be seen many kilometers away, but had not damaged residential buildings, the news agency reported.
The blast occurred soon after Victory Day celebrations that mark the surrender of Nazi Germany. The events included a fireworks show, RIA Novosti said.
The pipeline could have been damaged intentionally, a police source told the news agency. Bomb experts were expected to start investigating as soon as the fire was put out, which was expected to take a couple of hours, according to RIA Novosti
The injured were treated for burns, a spokesman for the emergencies ministry said, according to the RIA Novosti news agency.
The fire destroyed or damaged utility lines, leaving about 100,000 customers without telephone and Internet communication, the Russian emergencies ministry said. The fire also damaged about 30 cars.
Twenty-five firefighting teams had been sent to the scene, but the fire wasn't expected to spread, RIA Novosti said.
The fire could be seen many kilometers away, but had not damaged residential buildings, the news agency reported.
The blast occurred soon after Victory Day celebrations that mark the surrender of Nazi Germany. The events included a fireworks show, RIA Novosti said.
The pipeline could have been damaged intentionally, a police source told the news agency. Bomb experts were expected to start investigating as soon as the fire was put out, which was expected to take a couple of hours, according to RIA Novosti
Source: http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/05/10/russia.pipeline.blast/index.html
There are more news/details on romanian portals but that's the only one i found in english.
It seems it happened ~2h ago, a big pipeline exploded in South West of Moscow. Nobody died but it's said that the fire has melted all cables over a 300-400m range (even the burrowed ones). Fortunately the zone isn't residential and the nearest building to it is an office building, ~500m from it. But people from any of the nearby residential zones (even km) from it have voluntarily left their apartments/houses. Even though the russian emergency situations officers said this can't go worse or anything, alternative sources are saying otherwise, which is probably what scares those people.
The russian ministry for emergency situations have cataloged it as a level 5 fire, the biggest existing. All firefighters units across the city have been sent there as well as lots of millitary helicopters are coming to help putting out the fire.
Videos of it... 200m high flames ... looks very impressive:
And amateur footage from distance (from different locations):
They say it will be put out in a couple of hours, but lots of millitary bomb experts have moved on site and will start investigating as soon as the fire is out. That's pretty strange in the conditions that the authorities have announced that this is provoked by a too big pressure down the pipeline.
Edit: I just noticed i wrote moscow UNDER fire instead of ON fire in the title. Some mod please fix it, so it isn't that misleading.
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