Munitions depot blasts prompt evacuation of Kazakh town

A series of explosions at a southern Kazakh munitions depot Monday led authorities to evacuate a nearby town of 40,000 people and saw dozens reportedly hospitalised.

The blasts near the town of Arys were caused by "a fire, which led to the explosion of some of the ammunition (at the depot)," Kazakhstan's defence ministry said in a statement.

Social media users shared videos of people fleeing the area with huge plumes of smoke rising towards the sky in the backdrop.

The defence ministry said there had been no deaths or injuries recorded. But Radio Free Europe's Kazakh service reported over 50 hospitalised, citing sources at two hospitals in the south of the country.

Three people in a hospital in Shymkent, a city of one million, were in a serious condition, RFE reported.

The head of the administrative region where Arys is located said that the town would be evacuated "completely" on Monday.

"Given the scale of what is happening, we see that we need to evacuate the city as a whole," Umirzak Shukeyev, Turkestan regional head, said in comments published by the private Tengrinews website.