Posted on 03/15/2008 8:55:15 AM PDT by maquiladora
One hundred and sixty people, many of them Americans, are feared dead or injured after a series of large explosions at an army base on the outskirts of Tirana, the capital of Albania, officials have said. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/mar/15/nato ____________________________________________________ Many people are feared dead after a massive explosion at an Albanian Army Base. The shockwave was so powerful it damaged the city's nearby international airport, and blew out windows in houses six miles away. The blast set off a number of further blasts in ammunition stored at the army depot near Tirana. Local journalist Altin Kodra told Sky News: "The area has been pulverised." He said it was thought there were some 260 people with serious injuries, and many people killed. Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha said that a "considerable" number of people were dead. "Terrified people are leaving the area on foot along the highway, women and children," said a Reuters cameraman at the scene. "Cars with broken windows have been abandoned on the highway." Arlinda Causholli, a spokeswoman for Tirana Airport, said windows and glass doors were shattered. "We evacuated passengers from the affected area and suspended flights for around 30 minutes," she said. The explosions are believed to have begun while three teams were dismantling munitions stored at the base. A doctor at the Tirana military hospital compared the flood of people with "a toll of war," and appealed for people to donate blood.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
Religion of Peace celebrating the creation of its Kosovo puppet state?
Links :
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/mar/15/nato
http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30200-1309436,00.html
THese Muslim extremists are the scum of the earth. If we find out which group is responsible, carpet bombs these sleezebags and all their families !!!
Aren’t these guys supposed to be like our best friends now?
What are Americans doing there ? This is Europes mess, let them fix a problem instead of causing them for a change.
First rule of EOD: Don’t dismantle things near where there’s other stuff that’ll blow up.
The explosions are believed to have begun while three teams were dismantling munitions stored at the base.
Clinton’s War.
You are half correct in your assessment.
You are half correct in your assessment.
Oh my
Yes, they were ‘experts’ in dissassembling munitions.
I suppose their level of expertise will now be called into question.
We need to take off the gloves and scare the hell out of them.
When our administration bent over backwards and grabbed our ankles when it the news about Abu Garab came out that these poor muslim extremists were forced to put underwear on their heads. Obviously, this has got to be one of worst things any country has ever done to prisoners. Wake up America, we have got to scare the hell out of these extremists and be brutal. This will make them sit back and take notice. I just wish the mass media including the NY Times, Wash Post, NBC, etc would care more about the safety and security of America than being politically correct. Boycott these bastards !!
That must have been at the end of the article. I didn’t see that info in the text before the excerpt ended.
oh no
Nam Vet
But that would inhibit people's ability to perform knee-jerk reactions so expeditiously.
No, I’m thinking Hezbollah’s response to taking out the co-founder of their organization, Mugniyah. Hoping it was really just an accident, but it’s been a month since his death (on Feb. 13) and that was the timing the last time one of their leader’s was taken out.
Yikes. Sounds like an ammo depot went up. A place where they dismantle obsolete ordnance? Ouch. Sounds like an accident then, more than an intentional act.
If this is coming from SkyNews, why is Fox still doing tornado and election crap?
Expect a cover-up by the government(s) involved.
I forgot, it’s Saturday. The weekend crew is pathetic.
These initial reports are seemingly always flawed in content and reason due anxieties of the moment. I’ll wait for following reports that should be more objective and responsible.
The thanks America and NATO get for creating a Muslim dagger right into the heart of Europe. Beyond stupid.
America’s war, not just clintoon’s.
shame
Big ones. Though, as usual, early reports are often incorrect.
Another story says this was an Albanian Army base. It's hard to say how many Americans were there. Our activities appear to be related mostly to flying unmanned recon drones over the nearby areas. That might not be a large number of people.
I'm guessing that the EOD work being there was by the Albanian Army, probably dismantling what may be enormous stockpiles of old Soviet munitions. Old explosives can be really, really unstable. Somehow somebody set one off in one of the (probably) earthen depot storage units and the whole thing blew. That's just speculation, but probably right.
I wonder if this might be a mistranslation, maybe Americans=Armenians?
“Local journalist Altin Kodra told Sky News: “The area has been pulverised.”
A large one, such as what happens when an oil refinery, a fireworks factory or an ammunition dump explodes. The Hiroshima nuclear blast was around 20 kilotons, meaning it was equivalent to 20,000 tons of TNT. The Warsaw Pact countries were notorious packrats when it came to war surplus. I have no doubt at all that a single ammo dump in Albania could hold 20,000 tons—or even 200,000 tons—of explosives, most of them over 50 years old.
Remember, the tinfoil hat only works if the shiny side is out. If the shiny side is in, it just focuses the rays!
There was an explosion at an ammo dump on the Kola Penisula, I believe it was, in 1984. It was only conventinal weapons, but it was a catastrophic explosion. Murmansk, maybe?
I don't doubt it. You get enough conventional explosive in one place, and it would be hard to distinguish from a tactical nuke.
Bush recently enabled them supporting Kosovo independence, long live Clinton - Bush - (Clintons?) dynasty.
We need to pull out and declare surrender in Clinton’s forgotten war...
Guardian’s headline is wrong. It’s 160 dead OR INJURED. Sky News has 4 dead, 170 injured.
Maybe just Serb commandos going after some payback.
These people do not scare. They live for the glorification of Allah, or they die for the glorification of Allah.
They don't scare or have PTSD. Half their childhood friends die of disease or malnutrition.
This is a virus that feeds on itself. They live or die, period.
Americans in Albania are supporting the "Islam is religion of peace" Bush doctrine, while McCain continues Bush's Iraq policy (100 years in Iraq at 20 billion a month or whatever the number is + lost lives), that's why Republicans are going to lose House, Senate, and Presidency this year.
Sorry, they lost the House already, didn't they?
This seems to be the money paragraph:
“Albania is required to dismantle its obsolete Stalinist-era arsenal and modernise its armed forces in order to qualify it for an invitation to join Nato next month.”
Evidently at least “a few” Americans MAY have been there helping them dismantle this stuff.
I must say, I think letting Albania into NATO, while continuing to grind down the Serbs, is a dumb move.
Check out the Texas City explosion of 1947. That was about 17 million pounds of ammonium nitrate. http://www.local1259iaff.org/disaster.html
To quote one source, “...The explosion knocked people to their knees ten miles away in Galveston and broke windows forty miles from its center in Houston.” The ship’s anchor was found about 2 miles away.
C'mon.
The cluelessness expressed on this thread is better than any Saturday morning cartoon.
:~)
More like old ammunition degenerating and cooking off. Albania stocked LOTS of ammunition since 1945.
“What kind of explosions can break windows SIX MILES away??”
If enough of them go off at once. Remember Halifax 1917? Or the Naples explosion of 1943?
Next to last sentence in excerpt posted.
Not sure about windows 6 miles away, but the Texas City Texas bulk carrier ship that blew up in the harbor in 1947 was about as big as it gets.
Texas City is also the location of the worst single industrial accident in US history—the 1947 explosion of a transport ship that contained massive amounts of ammonia nitrite fertilizer. That explosion killed 576 people and injured over 5,000.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.