KURCHALOI (Russia) Feb 8: At least 13 people were killed and more than 20 injured when a blast ripped through a barrack for elite troops in Chechnya, Russian military and local emergency ministry officials said on Wednesday.

The explosion that took place on Tuesday destroyed the two-storey barracks of the Vostok Battalion in Kurchaloi in the east of the war-torn province. Armed troops sealed off the site on Wednesday.

“Two theories are being worked on in the explosion, including a gas leak and the detonation of explosive material,” a spokesman for Russia’s military prosecutor was quoted as saying by Interfax news agency.

Chechnya’s prosecutor Valery Kuznetsov also said that both possibilities were being considered, but that the gas leak version was being given priority. The Vostok unit is comprised of ethnic-Chechens, but subordinate to the Russian army’s secretive Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU). —AFP