Several minutes before 7 am the Bulgarian capital Sofia was shaken by powerful gunpowder explosions, which were heard in the whole city.

The explosions came from a military storage facility located in the northeast Sofia quarter Chelopechene, Kremikovtzi Municipality.

The windows of the buildings in Chelopechene have been broken by the detonations. Around 8:30 a.m. the explosions were still continuing, and could be heard in Sofia.

The Director of the Civil Defense Service Andrey Ivanov announced before the Darik Radio announced that there were no dangerous substances in the air above the Bulgarian capital, and that no evacuation of the population was needed.

The area around the site of the explosions had been secured by units of the local police, the military, and the Civil Defense Service.

The Chief of the General Staff of the Bulgarian Army General Zlatan Stoykov said the people in the area close to the site should leave or make sure they were in a safe place because of the danger of flying parts of ammunitions.

The bTV channel reported that the measurements by the mobile chemical laboratory of the Bulgarian Army had shown there were no dangerous chemical substances in the area, citing the Defense Minister Nikolay Tsonev.

The Bulgarian Army and the Defense Ministry were unable to announce immediately what sort of munitions had been stored in the facilities in Chelopechene.

Later, the former Chief of the General Staff of the Bulgarian Army and present head of the President's Cabinet General Nikola Kolev announced before the bTV Channel that the storage facility contained about 20 tons of classical TNT ammunitions, i.e. bombs not containing any dangerous chemical substances.

2,5 tons of these, however, were old explosives, which had been potentially dangerous.

Kolev also said that it was too early to say anything about what started the explosions, and that the investigation would not begin until the explosions die down because the site was currently inaccessible.

The residents of the Chelopechene area are to be evacuated with public transport buses, many of which have already arrived at the site.

The Minister of Defense Nikolay Tsonev also disproved any allegations about dangerous chemical substances in the air above the Bulgarian capital.

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