Explosions killed 15 people at a military depot outside Turkmenistan's capital last week, a special government commission said on Sunday, breaking days of official silence after opposition reports of up to 200 dead, according to Reuters. The official report said little about the extent of the damage in Adadan, about 20 km (12 miles) from Ashgabat, but the president said a new town would be built there and demoted the defence minister to a colonel from a major-general. "We will build a new, modern town on this place," the main television news programme of the day showed Turkmen President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov as saying. Residents in Ashgabat said on Thursday they heard several blasts from Abadan, which hosts a power station feeding electricity to the capital , and that electricity supplies had been erratic. Turkmenistan's exiled opposition posted pictures of powerful explosions on its Internet sites and, quoting numerous witness accounts, said between 100 and 200 people could have been killed by the blasts. The Foreign Ministry of the reclusive former Soviet state, Central Asia's biggest natural gas producer, had said hot weather detonated fireworks at a storage facility in Abadan and that there were no casualties. Berdymukhame d ov, who holds virtually unlimited powers, was given the report of the special government commission on Sunday, the state news agency reported. "In particular, it was reported that as a result of the emergency situation that occurred, two military servicemen and 13 civilian persons died, and nearby houses and other constructions were partially damaged," the agency said. "The investigation ... established that the fire, caused by abnormally hot weather, caused the detonation of fireworks whose fragments covered an area housing military depots that held explosives from Soviet-era ammunition waiting for their utilisation," the official agency said. Berdymukhamedov ordered that all those responsible for the blasts be brought to justice, be stripped of all state decorations and ranks and be put on tribunal. He ordered that Defence Minister, Major-General Begench Gundogdyev, be severely reprimanded and relegated to colonel. Berdymukhamedov, a 54-year-old professional dentist, was elected president of the 5.4-million nation in February 2007 after the sudden death of his predecessor Saparmurat Niyazov. Niyazov, who called himself Turkmenbashi the Great (Leader of the Turkmens), enjoyed a bizarre personality cult and stamped his image on almost every facet of life in the desert nation during his nearly 21-year rule. Berdymukhamedov, who heads a one-party state which human rights groups say is one of the most authoritarian and repressive in the world, has sought to reduce Turkmen dependence on supplies to Russia by seeking alternative export routes. Lionised by state propaganda, Berdymukhamedov has promised to bring the country out of isolation and has eased some of his predecessor's restrictions.
