Firemen missing after explosion at fuel depot fire in Ukraine

KIEV (Reuters) - Two Ukrainian firemen were missing after a fire they had been battling through the night at a fuel depot outside Kiev triggered a powerful explosion, Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said on Tuesday.

At least sixteen tanks, most of them storing petrol, were on fire and sending a huge pall of smoke over the area surrounding the depot near Vasylkiv, 30 km (19 miles) from Kiev.

"In the area of the blaze, there is another fuel depot," Avakov said in a tweet. "All people have been evacuated and a cordon is being set up."

At least five workers were injured in the fire and one later died in hospital, police said. Some 62 fire-fighting units and three trains delivering water and supplies were mobilised, emergency services said.

Police said the fire, which began in one fuel tank and spread to others, was likely to have been started by a technical fault but the cause was not yet fully clear.

"As of 7 a.m. (0400 GMT), efforts to fight the fire are still going on. The fire extended over eight tanks with a capacity of 900 cubic meters and several small containers," the service said.

(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk; Writing by Alessandra Prentice; Editing by Richard Balmforth and Tom Heneghan)