RENO: At least Six US Marines were killed and eight wounded when a mortar exploded during a live-fire training exercise late Monday at an Army munitions depot in the Nevada desert, military officials said.
A 60-millimeter mortar exploded in a tube at Hawthorne Army Depot as Marines were preparing to fire it, the officials said.
The injured were taken to two hospitals. Stacy Kendall, a spokeswoman for Renown Regional Medical Center, said that it was treating eight people wounded in the blast, three in serious condition and five in fair condition. She said that the injuries included traumas and fractures.
The Hawthorne Army Depot is a 147,000-acre storage facility for ammunition and other equipment being taken out of service and a training facility for Special Operations forces preparing to deploy to the Middle East. The facility is made up of hundreds of buildings spread over more than 230 square miles.
An official told KRNV-TV in Reno that the explosion Monday night was an accident unrelated to the ammunition that is stored at the military facility near the small desert community of Hawthorne, about 140 miles southeast of Reno.
In Washington, Army spokesman George Wright says he as yet had no details on the explosion. (AP)
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