One man was killed and another injured during an explosion at a military base in the Ural Mountains region of Chelyabinsk, Russian media reported.
The blast occurred while private contractors were doing munition disposal work at a military base near the town of Karabash on Wednesday, the government's official Rossiiskaya Gazeta daily reported, citing an unidentified military source.
Some 30 kilograms of artillery gunpowder exploded, the official said, blaming the blast on a violation of safety procedures, the report said.
A 65-year-old weapons expert from Moscow has been killed, and a 54-year-old man from Kaliningrad has been hospitalized with serious burns and other injuries, the official was quoted as saying.
During a similar incident at the military base in 2009, an army lieutenant-colonel was killed and two servicemen were injured when a soldier lit up a cigarette while working with ammunition, Rossiiskaya Gazeta reported.
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