MOSCOW, Nov 13 A series of blasts ripped through an arms depot near the Russian city of Ulyanovsk on Friday, killing two firemen, but dozens of people escaped the explosions and fire by hiding in a shelter, officials said.

“More than 40 people have been saved, including those who were reported missing,” Ulyanovsk Governor Sergei Morozov told Pervyi Kanal television station as firemen fought the raging inferno.

“For now, the death of two people is confirmed. They are military firemen who went to fight to the fire” after the first explosion, the Interfax news agency quoted defence ministry spokesman Alexei Kuznetsov as saying.

Forty-three people hid in a shelter at the depot after a first explosion set off a chain of blasts and started several fires, an emergency services source told RIA Novosti news agency.

Two trucks of gunpowder exploded in the disaster, according to a source quoted by the agency.

The governor said more than 3,000 people had been evacuated within a radius of seven kilometres around the fire, sparked by a blast in a workshop at a depot on the outskirts of Ulyanovsk, about 900km east of Moscow. Around 20 people needed medical attention, 11 of whom were hospitalised.—AFP