The Evangelos Florakis Naval Base explosion was the worst peacetime military accident ever recorded in Cyprus. The incident occurred on 11 July 2011, when 98 containers of explosives that had been stored for 2½ years in the sun on the Evangelos Florakis Naval Base near Zygi self-detonated.The resulting explosion killed 13 people, 12 of them immediately, including Captain Andreas Ioannides, the Commander of the Navy (Cyprus's most senior naval officer), and the base commander, Lambros Lambrou. Also killed were four navy personnel and six firefighters, while a further 62 people were injured. The explosion severely damaged hundreds of nearby buildings including all of the buildings in Zygi and the island's largest power station, responsible for supplying over half of Cyprus' electricity. As a result, much of Cyprus was without power in the immediate aftermath of the incident and rolling blackouts were initiated in order to conserve supplies.As a result of the incident, the Cypriot Defence Minister and the Commander-in-Chief of the Cypriot National Guard both resigned. Angered by the government's failure to dispose of the munitions, which had been seized in 2009, several thousand citizens staged demonstrations in the capital Nicosia and other cities, every day in the week following the accident. The EU prognosticated that the cost of the explosion could be just over 10% of the country's economy.BackgroundThe Evangelos Florakis Navy Base is a Cyprus Navy base, situated near Zygi, between Limassol and Larnaca.