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CNN Live At Daybreak
Afghan Ammunition Dump Explodes; Interview with Khaled Mansour
Aired June 28, 2002 - 06:02 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: An ammunitions dump has exploded in Afghanistan, killing at least one person and injuring dozens of others. Authorities say the death toll is expected to rise. No Americans are involved. The blast took place in Spin Boldak, just across the border from Pakistan.
Our Tom Mintier joins us live by videophone from the Pakistani capital with details. What happened?
TOM MINTIER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Carol, it's a developing story. We still don't know how many people actually have been killed by this accident, but the death toll may go very, very high. They say there is a possibility of at least 50 people being missing.
At 2:30 in the morning, a weapons depot, that was basically captured weapons after the Taliban fled Kandahar, was stockpiled in Spin Boldak, and it exploded. It started exploding after midnight and carried on for several hours. As far as Chaman several miles way, windows were reportedly broken out, and people were awakened in the middle of the night. Now, the injuries, many of them were brought across the border from Afghanistan into Pakistan.
Right next to this weapons depot was the World Food Program distribution center, where a lot of the food aid for Afghanistan is. Khaled Mansour joins us now. You had one person injured. You had a couple of buildings that were knocked down, but most of the food aid survived.
KHALED MANSOUR, WORLD FOOD PROGRAM: This is true. I think we are very fortunate, because this is a very busy warehouse, handling food supplies for millions of the people in south and west Afghanistan. The 800,000 tons of food in the warehouse are almost intact, but because of the strong shockwave, the huge storage tanks were flattened, and some of the offices were destroyed.
MINTIER: Did you have any idea that your distribution center was so close to a weapons storage facility?
MANSOUR: Well, the warehouse has been there for a few years. I think that that ammunition depot was there only for a few months, well (ph) since we moved there.
MINTIER: You had one person injured. How is he?
MANSOUR: He was discharged from the hospital. He has been treated for a slight injury, and he is now back at his home.
MINTIER: All right. So you are able to continue your shipments of food aid possibly later today or tomorrow from that location?
MANSOUR: We have trucks that move from Qatar in Pakistan, and they are on their way to that warehouse. Hopefully, we can continue as normal as we can.
MINTIER: All right. So the World Food Program's offices will continue to operate there. As I said at the beginning, a developing story. We still don't know how many people were killed. It's possibly as many as a dozen or even more. It will take some time before they can sort it out, but they are doing that right now.
Apparently, a great scene of devastation after these weapons went off, several rockets and mortars flying through the air, but several miles away, people could feel the shockwaves and see a fireball in the sky inside Afghanistan. As you said earlier, no Americans involved from the base in Kandahar nearby, but casualties, mostly Afghans as it appears right now from the military who were guarding this weapons depot -- Carol.
COSTELLO: The governor of the Kandahar Province was keeping the stockpiled weapons. Why?
MINTIER: Well, after the Taliban basically vacated the area, there were a lot of weapons left behind, a lot of mortar shells, a lot of rockets and things like that. These were apparently gathered for safekeeping by Afghan authorities. And the word we received from Pakistani government officials that the governor of Kandahar was the custodian, if you will, of these weapons that had been stored there after the Taliban fled.
Just how safe they were kept is something I am sure that's going to be investigated. There were reportedly plans to move this weapons depot away from the residential area, but the plans were not put into action before it exploded.
COSTELLO: Awful. Thank you -- Tom Mintier reporting live from Pakistan this morning -- thank you.
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