A Russian warplane accidentally fired a weapon, late on Thursday, in Belgorod in southern Russia near Ukraine causing an explosion which injured two women and damaged buildings, the defence ministry was reported as saying by Reuters.
Local authorities reported a large blast in the city, which lies just across the border from Ukraine.
“As a Sukhoi Su-34 air force plane was flying over the city of Belgorod there was an accidental discharge of aviation ammunition,” the defence ministry said, Reuters reported.
Belgorod region governor Vyacheslav Gladkov announced a state of emergency, on Thursday, confirming the blast, on the messaging app Telegram and said that there was a crater measuring 20 metres across one of the main streets in the Russian city.
Belgorod, an explosion occurred on one of the central streets. The governor reported that as a result,a crater about 20 meters in size was formed. Glazing was broken in houses near the place of emergency, there were no victims among the locals according to preliminary information pic.twitter.com/bzsRNeid2v
— Spriter (@Spriter99880) April 20, 2023
Gladkov added that four cars and four apartment buildings were damaged due to the explosion.
According to the media report, the defence ministry had also confirmed that an unspecified number of buildings were damaged following the accidental discharge of aviation ammunition and confirmed that there were no casualties. The Su-34 is a supersonic fighter-bomber jet.
Belgorod mayor Valentin Demidov arrived at the scene. A picture showed him speaking to a resident in what appeared to be her damaged apartment, according to AFP.
According to Reuters, the video footage of the site shows piles of concrete on the street, several damaged cars and a building with broken windows. In one shot, a car was seen upside down on the roof of a store.
Demidov said that residents of the buildings damaged in the blast could be temporarily moved to hotels.
As per Reuters, Belgorod is one southern region in Russia, where targets such as fuel and ammunition stores have been rocked by explosions since the start of February 2022 when the Ukraine and Russia conflict began.
As per AFP, in January, Gladkov told Putin that 25 people had been killed and more than 90 injured in the region since the start of the offensive.
