Mari Explosion: Timeline of events

* 4am – fire started at the Naval Base in Mari, soldiers try to battle the flames themselves but unsuccessfully

* 4.27am – Fire Department receives call about the fire. Around the same time commanders and senior officers arrive on the scene.

* 5am – the fire is out of control

* 5.53am – huge explosion when the containers of ammunitions blow up

* 10.30am – President Demetris Christofias arrives on the scene and stays for an hour

* 12pm – twelve dead and fifteen injured

* 12.30pm – the fire was brought under control by this time but the Fire Department continued to stand guard, fearing it would reignite

* 1pm – number of those injured stands at about 59 in all hospitals –  Limassol, Larnaca and Nicosia General Hospitals

* 3pm – number of those injured stands at 62 in total and 12 dead

* 5pm – the bodies of the deceased begin to be transferred to Nicosia General, starting with four of them

* 7.55pm – another eight bodies, the last of them, are taken to Nicosia General.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.