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Rajma, Libya (AFP) March 5, 2011 Flattened buildings, uprooted trees and burned-out fire trucks made the site of an arms dump explosion in rebel-held Libya resemble a nuclear wasteland Saturday. A protecting wall round the munitions depot near Benghazi, the largest in the region, had been blown away by Friday's double blast, which caused devastation for some 500 metres (yards) around and killed up to 34 people, according to a doctor. Hundreds of mourners turned out to bury the dead at a cemetery on the outskirts of Benghazi, blaming the tragedy on Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi and vowing that their uprising would succeed. But none of those AFP spoke to were willing to give their full names, fearing reprisals and still terrified of Kadhafi. "There will be rivers of blood. It won't be like in Tunisia and Egypt. How long will the West hold back and do nothing? People are asking why the West is watching without doing anything," said one man in jeans and a leather jacket. "For me, anything that flies overhead, they should shoot it down. Plain and simple," said the businessman, referring to the popular belief that the complex had been attacked from the air. "We're not quite sure whether it was sabotage, an accident or an air strike, but nobody saw any planes," Mustafa Gheriani, a spokesman for the rebels' self-declared national council in Benghazi, said earlier. The commander of the military engineering headquarters, Major Wanis Brahim Beleuwila, was inclined to blame sabotage by supporters of Kadhafi. Local resident Mustapha Salah, 30, said the armoury housed explosives and munitions for anti-aircraft guns, rocket-launchers and light automatic weapons in 48 bunkers. Three huge craters were all that remained of the underground bunkers, while only the foundations of the central structure still stood, along with the smoking wreckage of anti-aircraft batteries protecting the site. "A fire triggered a first explosion, then a second that was much more powerful," Salah said. Other stores protected by earth banks were still standing, their doors torn off in order to remove the contents to safety. Witnesses said rebel fighters had come to collect weapons before heading west for the front. No guards had been posted at the scene of the disaster Saturday, as people came and went in private cars, searching the ruins for any arms that were still intact. An ambulance also drove around with the crew looking for the remains of victims. One body was found but more were expected to turn up. Hussem al-Mejri, a doctor at Benghazi's Al-Jala Hospital, told AFP the death toll so far was between 32 and 34. "We're having problems at arriving at an exact number of dead as several bodies were torn apart by the explosions," he said.
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