Fourteen Bolivian soldiers still missing after Viacha barracks blasts

Fourteen Bolivian soldiers were still unaccounted for on Saturday after two explosions at an army munitions store in Viacha, 30 kilometres south-west of La Paz. Base commander Colonel Antonio Amaru said a sergeant and 13 conscripts aged 18 and 19 had not been found. Search teams were working the site as a high-risk zone because nearby stores of explosive were intact.

The blasts hit the depot of the Centro General de Mantenimiento at Regimiento de Artillería Mecanizada-2 Bolívar on Friday afternoon, around 14:30 local time. Defence Minister Ernesto Justiniano said the first explosion involved black powder from pyrotechnic stock kept at the site, along with booster charges. The larger second blast came minutes later. People who had walked toward the smoke were hit by flying debris. Roofs came off. Windows went across two blocks. Trees were torn up.

Confirmed deaths on Saturday stood at two young men in their first year of compulsory service, according to AFP's count from the command. Earlier local health figures had been higher. Viacha health director Rita Nebraska told television that 10 to 15 people were believed dead and that 62 were injured, including a girl with third-degree burns among 14 patients sent to La Paz. By Saturday Amaru's briefing put 82 injured, most of them in uniform, with three in critical condition and 47 already discharged. Those two briefings do not match. The missing list of 14 is the figure the command was willing to sign.

Police spokesman Roger Roca said fireworks had been stored at the barracks and that the cause was under investigation. Firefighters warned of residual heat and told residents to stay 150 metres back. President Rodrigo Paz offered condolences and said the inquiry would be thorough, technical and transparent.

Viacha has about 114,000 people. An artillery regiment sitting inside a town that size means a depot accident is also a civilian event. Justiniano noted that onlookers had time to approach between the first and second detonations. That interval is now part of the file. So is the decision to keep old black powder and boosters in a store close enough to break windows two streets away.

Bolivia's conscript system puts 18-year-olds into magazines and guard rosters. Thirteen of the missing are that age. Families standing outside the cordon on Saturday asked only to be told whether a named soldier was inside. Amaru did not have those names to release as confirmed dead. He had a missing list.

Sunday's work is the search and the chemical analysis of what fired the second blast. Until the 14 are found or identified, the death toll is a floor, not a total.