Explosions in Bukhara
Today early in the morning, I was chatting in G’chat with my friend from Bukhara. At about 2 am (Uzbek time) he was suddenly gone and did not answer my messages for like 10-15 minutes. I was already thinking that he fell asleep, but he returned back writing that there were a series of explosions in Bukhara. Explosions lasted whole night till the morning. At night, it was not clear what exactly was exploding. Today, Ministry of emergency situations of the Republic of Uzbekistan officially stated [ru] that the night explosions were the result of the fire in the explosive storage in Kagan town, not far from Bukhara. The ministry also informs that three people died during the explosions and 21 people were injured. Here is the video of explosions in Bukhara.
on July 11th, 2008 at 5:34 am
If you look on Google Earth in Kagan you can see what looks to be the most obvious location for the blast: an enormous ammunition dump right next to the helicopter base. Look for the cluster of big 4-sided sand berms with boxes of stuff stacked inside.
My wife’s family lives the village of Zerabad near the blast site and their windows all shattered on the first explosion. Before the second explosion everyone in the village ran out (some barefoot) and evacuated. There’s a village/district even closer to the blast site and they haven’t seen or heard of anyone from there, which makes them fear that they were killed in the blast.
Apparently no one is being allowed back in Kagan, but also no one is being allowed into (or out of) Bukhara, at least from the East. Apparently Uzbek TV is barely reporting on what’s going on (no surprise).
on July 11th, 2008 at 5:41 pm
The 5th microregion in Bukhara has already been evacuated. What’s going on, that’s 15 km away from the blast? Toxic substances? Perhaps - and this is just purely speculation - leftover chemical weapons that were never destroyed?
on July 12th, 2008 at 1:11 am
No info on that. As far as I heard from friends in Bukhara, everything seems to be more or less ok now. Evacuated people are getting back to their homes. If it was a chemical weapon, the government would evacuate whole Bukhara, not separate districts.
on July 12th, 2008 at 4:38 am
Yeah, I think you’re right. Plus, from some of the descriptions I’m getting it sounds like rockets were going off and traveling a great distance. That may explain the large evacuation radius.
I got confirmation that the roof of the Kagan railway station has collapsed as well as the footbridge across the rail tracks. Also, I did hear from someone that the Kagan hospital is indeed flattened.
Apparently the claims that people are being fed and housed by the government are false. No help has been offered to the people that I (well, my wife) has heard from. They are really angry.
on July 14th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
Lets’ see. I would not be surprised if in the coming days, the karimovites take some poor sods from the Jaslyk concentration camp and amke them ‘confess’ that it was a terrorist attack by the IMU and the HuT.
on September 9th, 2008 at 1:05 am
The information provided on the internet is totaly false. All these comes from Uzbek state officials. I am from Bukhara, and I was there the day it happened. There was one district in Kagan named Zerabad, with the population almost 8,000 people. None of it left. My friend was running from Kagan and on his way he was jumping over the dead bodies of people killed by the projectiles and splinters.
And three days after all these, the governor (hokim) of Bukhara, states on TV that 3 persons died and 21 wounded.
There was no terrorists attack, the only resposible body for these is a state and its recklessness towards people.
Moreover, those who lost their homes were offered to take 30,000 dollars credit from the state. Now imagine, you lost everything, home, car, capital, bussiness and instead of compensation State puts you in debt!