Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Massive explosions rock Baghdad!

Over the past 90 minutes or so, massive explosions could be heard in Baghdad and actually I'm hearing more of them while I'm typing.
When the first few bangs happened I thought they were just the usual dose of mortars for the night but more and more explosion kept happening!

I went up to the roof to see if anything could be seen from there and I was able to see several flashes coming from the south, south-west side of the city.
Using the simple method of measuring the lag between seeing the flash and hearing the sound I figured out the explosions are taking place somewhere in the area between Karrada and Dora, yet the explosions are very loud that they can be heard in the northern parts of Baghdad!
I'm searching the news for a clue about what's going on but I found nothing so far.

Update (12:35 am):

First news report on the situation is just in.

Reuters says the explosions were caused by a fire that broke out at "an ammunition dump at a U.S. base in southern Baghdad" apparently in the Dora district of Baghdad.

And yes, explosions can still be heard as of now.

Update (1:00 am):

It's been two hours since the first explosions were heard but I still hear more of them.
Right now I can hear several explosions a minute but they got milder than they were in the beginning, i.e. they are fairly loud but they no longer make doors and window shields shake in a 10 mile radius!

I can only imagine what it's been like over there and I can only pray that it did not cause casualties among US military or Iraqi civilians living nearby.

Update (2:20 am):

Less and less explosions can be heard now, I can say the frequency now is at about one every 5-10 minutes instead of 5-10 seconds, so I assume soon there will be no more explosions to hear.
I hope I'm right about my assumption because I really need to have a few hours of uninterrupted sleep...

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