ATHENS, July 17. /TASS/. The Greek authorities ordered firefighters and journalists to withdraw from the one-kilometer zone around the crashed Ukrainian An-12 plane for fears that the aircraft was transporting ammunition or some other dangerous cargo, the Open TV channel reported on Sunday.
According to local civil protection official Stavros Kivrakis, the immediate evacuation was ordered because the authorities had no information about the nature of the cargo or its potential toxicity. A group of experts tasked with assessing possible hazards is to arrive to the crash site soon.
Two firefighters reported respiratory problems, apparently caused by dense smoke blanketing the crash site. They were sent to a hospital in the nearby city of Kavala. Moreover, a number of residents of two villages in the vicinity were also evacuated to safer grounds.
A series of blasts was rocking the area for two hours, but explosions have ceased almost completely by now.
An unspecified peculiar odor is spreading from the crash site, and the authorities fear a leak of toxic gases. A special drone will be deployed to survey the disaster area.
According to the TV channel, the plane en route from Serbia to Jordan and owned by a Ukrainian company is believed to had been transporting 12 tonnes of some dangerous cargo, possibly ammunition.
The Greek civil aviation authority said it had not yet received any information about the cargo from the Serbian authorities.
Commercial flight MEM3032 (Meridian Air Cargo) was en route from Serbia to Jordan when its pilots requested an emergency landing in the northern Greek city of Kavala. The crew reported that one of the plane’s four engines had caught fire. The emergency landing was granted promptly, but the plane began to rapidly lose altitude while approaching the airport.
The aircraft hit a power line and fell about 40 km away from the Kavala airport. According to preliminary information, there were eight crew members on board.