MANILA: A ball of fire and explosions ripped through a munitions depot at the Philippine army’s headquarters near the financial district in Manila Wednesday, injuring 25 people, mostly soldiers and firemen, officials said.

The blaze is suspected of triggering the blasts that rained bullets, broken bricks, pieces of concrete, glass and tree branches at the sprawling Fort Bonifacio site, they added.

“I was a few meters (yards) away when the fire broke and caused a loud explosion,” army spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Noel Detoyato told reporters.

He put the updated toll at 25 injured, many of them soldiers as well as firefighters who were trying to put out a blaze at the isolated munitions depot when the entire building suddenly exploded in orange flame.

Footage by local television network ABS-CBN showed the main explosion, followed by soldiers and firemen running and shouting for help on a football field strewn with injured colleagues, tree branches and other debris.

Colleagues shouted at a fireman in a fire retardant suit who vainly tried to pull his fire hose out of the inferno while soldiers and other firemen loaded injured colleagues into an ambulance and an army truck. The building is surrounded by trees and is located a few minutes’ drive from the Makati financial district.

Detoyato said a barracks nearby was used as quarters by army explosives experts who respond to bomb alerts and similar emergencies in the capital.