Cyprus anger mounts over 'criminal' blast

Anger mounted in Cyprus on Tuesday over the deaths of 12 fire brigade and armed services personnel in a huge munitions blast that sparked severe power and water cuts on the Mediterranean holiday island. Frustrated Cypriots were using social networking sites and mobile texts to organise protests against what they perceived as government negligence in not preventing the island's worst peacetime military accident. A large protest was being organised in the capital Nicosia on Tuesday evening. A huge blast on Monday in a seized Iranian arms cache at a Greek Cypriot naval base on the south coast killed 12 people and injured 62, two of whom remained in critical condition on Tuesday. The power and water outages come at the height of a scorching summer. The commander of Cyprus's navy, Andreas Ioannides, was among the dead, as was the commander of the Evangelos Florakis naval base, Lambros Lambrou. Four other members of the armed services and six firefighters also died. Cyprus entered its second day of national mourning with flags on public buildings at half mast and all government events cancelled. But the media were in no doubt that the blast was avoidable and the government had a lot of unanswered questions to address. Although Defence Minister Costas Papacostas and Greek Cypriot National Guard commander Petros Tsaliklides resigned shortly after the disaster, President Demetris Christofias also came under fire. There were informal protests and candle-lit vigils late on Monday in which the government was called on to resign and Tuesday's newspapers produced some chilling headlines. "It's a crime," screamed the front-page headline in pro-opposition daily Alithia (The Truth). It said small explosions were recorded at the arms cache several days before the killer blast but pleas to navy commander Ioannides to remove the containers were ignored. The English-language Cyprus Mail called it a "criminal error," while squarely putting the blame on Christofias. The paper said in an editorial that it was a "disaster that could have been avoided if our country was run by a less incompetent president." The independent Politis daily ran with the headline: "Criminals: 12 dead and the economy in darkness because of criminal apathy." A picture of buckled containers exposed to the sun only 300 metres (yards) from the island's largest power plant was splashed over its front page. Relatives of the victims have been asking why the explosives were piled high in the open air without any protection. Top selling newspaper Phileleftheros summed it up with the words: "Crime and tragedy." The Vassiliko plant, which accounted for almost 60 percent of the island's electricity supply, was devastated by the force of the blast and is expected to remain out of operation for months or even years. The Electricity Authority of Cyprus (EAC) announced on Tuesday that various areas across the island would receive rolling two-hour power cuts "because of a lack of capacity." But the electricity authority said it would try to assure uninterrupted supplies to airports, ports, hospitals, and industrial and tourist areas. With residents urged to save energy and water to try to ensure businesses, hotels and industry keep going, the Cyprus Energy Regulatory Authority issued a decree making it compulsory to use generators where available. A huge mobile generator was scheduled to arrive from Greece to help the resort island cope with the peak holiday season. EAC chairman Charis Thrassou warned that the cost of repairs was likely to run to well over a billion euros ($1.4 billion). Loss of supply also prompted the closure of desalination plants which had allowed the gradual abandonment of summer water rationing over the past two years.