The commander of the Cypriot navy and the commander of a military base were among those killed, police said. The other victims were army officers and six firefighters.
The explosion happened at a military base where confiscated Iranian munitions were being held. It shut down the island’s largest power station, causing widespread power cuts. “The explosion occurred in material held since 2009 by the Republic from an Iranian vessel which was sailing to Syria ... there are 12 dead and 62 injured,” Stefanou said.
He said that Defense Minister Costas Papacostas and Army Chief Petros Tsalikidis had submitted their resignations, which were accepted by President Demetris Christofias. Stefanou said the victims were all Cypriots.
The early morning explosions devastated the adjacent Vassiliko power station in what Commerce Minister Antonis Paschalides called a “tragedy of Biblical dimensions” for the small Mediterranean island. The plant produces almost 60 percent of the country’s electricity supply. Massive damage was caused to homes in the nearby village of Mari, forcing the evacuation of its 150 residents, the village headman said.
Debris was hurled as far as three km from the seat of the blast in the Evangelos Florakis naval base.
Hundreds of trees on nearby hillsides were flattened by the force of the shock wave and several generator buildings and fuel tanks at the Vassiliko plant were reduced to shells. Virtually every window was blown out in Zygi, a village whose seafront fish restaurants are popular with locals and tourists alike.
The main motorway connecting Nicosia with the island’s second-largest city Limassol runs less than a km from the Vassiliko plant and passing motorists reported seeing debris flying through the air.
State television broadcast images of damaged vehicles, twisted road signs and debris strewn across the central reservation.
The Iranian armaments were in the cargo of the Monchegorksk, a ship Cyprus intercepted in 2009 sailing from Iran to Syria in violation of UN sanctions on Iran.
Military sources said they believed all 98 containers of the Iranian arms, kept exposed in scorching temperatures, exploded.
