Fireworks Blasts at Warehouse Kill 20
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ENSCHEDE, Netherlands — A blaze inside a fireworks warehouse triggered multiple explosions Saturday that killed at least 20 people, wounded 230 more and sent balls of fire shooting over the center of this eastern Dutch town, media reported.
A sea of black smoke plunged an entire neighborhood into darkness as the fire raged for hours after the afternoon explosions. Helicopters and ambulances ferried away the injured. A 625-square-yard area around the facility was destroyed, and streets in the town of Enschede, 85 miles east of Amsterdam, were littered with debris.
No details were given on the cause of the blast.
“This is truly a calamity,” the town’s mayor, J. Mans, told RTL-5 television. He said 100 tons of fireworks exploded in the blaze.
“Our information is that 20 people are dead, but I fear that there will be more,” he told the NOS public television channel.
Nearly 2,000 people live in the neighborhood where the warehouse is located, according to the mayor.
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