Around 20,000 or more people are being evacuated post the series of explosions at Ukraine. The explosions took place at a massive arms depot in the eastern part of the country, officials have described the incident as sabotage. Authorities are investigating various ways on how the explosion was caused.
The dump where the explosion took place is stored with thousands of tonnes of ammunition, and this includes some of the missiles and artillery weapons. Rescue teams are taking care of the mass evacuation process and looking over the effort for people living in cities and nearby villages.
According to BBC, the total area of dump spans more than 350 hectares. People who are located within a 6 mile radius near the dump are being evacuated. Ammunition and weapons from the depot are used to supply military units in the conflict zone. This ammunition goes to nearby places like Luhansk and Donetsk.
Defense Minister Stepan Poltorak stated that the investigation is going on, as there are also possibilities that a drone could have dropped an explosive device. Back in December 2015, a drone was reported to have been used as an earlier attempt to set the facility on fire.
None of the reports show that civilians or servicemen had been killed or injured during the recent incident. The airspace has also been closed within a 31 mile radius of Balakliya. Almost 10,000 people have died in the conflict which started in 2014 between Russia and Ukraine.
The base in Balakliya, near Kharkiv is around 60 miles and they have been fighting against Russian backed separatists. Russia had annexed Ukraine's southern Crimea peninsula, later on Pro-Russian rebels launched an insurgency in the east. The Russia - Ukraine tensions have been high over Crimea for a long time, the Ukraine crisis has not yet come to an end with all the emerging problems.
