The Indian army recovered the bodies of nine military firefighters Monday who had battled to put out a blaze at the army's largest arms depot in Kashmir over the weekend, taking the death toll to 13, officials said according to The Associated Press. The bodies of the nine soldiers were recovered from the periphery of the arms depot, said Lt. Col. A.K. Mathur, a spokesman for the federal defense ministry. Mathur said it would take firefighters another two days before they could get close to the depot where a low-intensity fire is still burning. About 14 soldiers are still missing along with two civilians, and at least 35 soldiers and civilians were injured in the fire, which broke out Saturday and sent shells exploding into the air. Earlier Monday the army ordered a high-level inquiry into the fire, said Lt. Gen. H.S. Panag, the chief of the Indian army's northern command. The fire was fueled by large explosives stored at the depot, but by Monday, the intermittent sound of explosions had stopped. Panag said the inquiry would determine what caused the fire, but he ruled out sabotage or an attack by Kashmiri militants. A local militant group claimed responsibility for the attack, however. Some 27,000 people from nine villages within a 5-kilometer (3-mile) radius were evacuated from areas near the arms depot, which is located some 70 kilometers (43 miles) south of Srinagar, the main city in India's Jammu-Kashmir state. An 8-kilometer (5-mile) area around the camp needs to be cleaned of explosives before civilians can return, said Panag.
