Six workers have died after an explosion at a secret weapons-making section of a chemicals plant in Kamensk-Shakhtinsky, Rostov region, Russia. Only one of the seven workers present survived and is in a grave condition.
Sources report that some team members were not supposed to be in the workshop, and their presence led to the blast. Staff shortages forced inexperienced personnel to work in the high-security facility, resulting in a violation of safety rules.
Foreman Alexander Krasnikov, 33, is fighting for his life in a coma on a ventilator. The deceased include Svetlana Mikhina, 55, Gennady Ivanov, 34, and Gennady Andreev, 31. Witnesses described workers running out, pulling off their clothes as they were burning alive.
The plant is believed to be involved in manufacturing multiple launch rocket systems, including Grad, Smerch, and Uragan, for the Russian Ministry of Defence. Officials have denied a chemical leak into the atmosphere despite video showing smoke rising from the facility.
An investigation is being led by Dmitry Kapranov, director of the Department of the Industry of Conventional Arms, Ammunition and Special Chemistry of the Ministry of Industry and Trade of Russia.
