A BRITISH experts’ preliminary report on the July 11 naval base blast was yesterday added to the body of evidence indicating that safety rules had been ignored the storage of 98 containers filled with munitions and other material.
The report, compiled by British forces experts asked by Cypriot police to provide assistance following the incident that killed 13 men and incapacitated the island’s main power station, more or less agrees with a Greek expert report that became public Thursday.
“The explosive event occurred due to inadequately protected and stored explosives, degraded and destabilised over a period of approximately two years, which spontaneously combusted, resulting in the mass sympathetic detonation of the entire site,” the report, which was published first by Politis, said. “The proximity of the storage to the Vassilikos power station, the quantity of munitions held, the storage method itself guaranteed that significant damage to essential infrastructure would occur in the event of an explosion within the site.”
The British experts stressed that their report is based “upon an incomplete investigation of the site” and used much anecdotal evidence.
“A more detailed report and full photographic supplement will be released in due course,” the five-page document said.
In their conclusions, the experts said the three-container high single block of containers was not protected from direct sunlight, creating “increased temperatures within the containers resulting in the explosives destabilising.”
“A regime of venting or shading or some other control measure may have helped combat this and would have at least slowed the degradation effect,” the report said.
The report said the containers were stacked so closely together and in such a quantity to guarantee a complete and instantaneous sympathetic detonation.
“Ammunition storage principles dictate that where possible explosives in storage should be separated by distance into smaller quantities,” the experts said.
They said the manner of storage, the obstruction of doors by other containers, meant that accessibility was limited, fire-fighting was impeded and the ability to remove affected containers was non-existent.
“The height and close proximity of the containers also meant that venting could not be carried out.”
The report said the location of the stack – inside a natural bowl open on one side – may have increased the focus of the sun, but it also helped in limiting the damage.
“Without the protection of the natural bowl, fragmentation and blast damage would have undoubtedly increased,” the report said.
The experts said there was little evidence suggesting the fire and subsequent explosion was caused by scrub fires.
The fire likely started after chemical reactions in the propellants heated the atmosphere inside one of the containers to a sufficient temperature so that ignition of the propellant through spontaneous combustion would have occurred, the report said.
Pressure within the container rose as the propellant burned, which in turn increased the rate of burning and produced more gas and heat and more pressure.
Based on the available evidence, the experts estimated the net explosive quantity of explosives involved to be between 80 and 160 tonnes and “is probably to the higher end of the estimation.”
