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TIRANA-An Albanian army munitions dump blew up in a series of massive explosions on Saturday and officials said they feared dozens of personnel including U.S. specialists may have been killed.Four people were confirmed dead and some 200 injured, they said, many of them civilians hurt as a result of the enormous shockwaves that hit nearby villages and cars passing by on the adjacent highway.Albanian and U.S. teams were moving obsolete munitions stored at the base, including 50-year-old artillery shells, when the explosions began. The base was a central collection point for the arsenal amassed by Albania's Stalinist-era dictatorship."We do not know the exact number (of casualties)," Prime Minister Sali Berisha's spokeswoman Juela Mecani told Reuters."But we fear the worst for the three teams, each of 21 people, working there at the time. Several were U.S. citizens."The U.S. embassy in Tirana told Reuters it could not confirm the presence of U.S. military personnel at the site.A government statement said four bodies had been recovered from the site, and emergency services were working to retrieve more dead and injured. About 200 people were already being treated in hospitals in Tirana and other towns, it added."Ten of them are critical, others have light injuries and many are in shock," Health Minister Nard Ndoka told Reuters.http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSL1549094520080315
As in the days of Noah....
