A Fireworks Store at a Bolivian Army Barracks Blew Up on Friday Afternoon. At Least 10 Are Dead.

Two explosions ripped through a military barracks in Viacha, a municipality about 30 kilometers from La Paz, on Friday afternoon, killing at least 10 people and injuring 62. The blasts began at around 2:30 p.m. local time in an area of the base used by Bolivia's defence ministry to store pyrotechnic material.

Rita Nebraska, the health director for Viacha, told local television that between 10 and 15 people were believed to have been killed. Fourteen of the injured were transferred to hospitals in La Paz, among them a child with severe burns. Seven people remained unaccounted for on Saturday morning as crews worked through the debris.

Much of the injury toll came from outside the base. Police said more than 50 people were hurt and dozens of homes were damaged, largely by windows that shattered across the surrounding neighborhood when the second explosion went off. Viacha is a working-class municipality on the Altiplano where housing sits close to the perimeter of the military compound.

Firefighters kept residents back through the evening, warning that a heat source remained at the site and that more of the stored pyrotechnics could still ignite. They asked people to stay at least 150 meters away. Police spokesman Roger Roca said the cause of the initial fire had not been established.

Deputy Defence Minister Ernesto Justiniano Urenda said an investigation would examine how the pyrotechnic material was stored and whether anyone bears responsibility for the conditions that allowed it to catch. Bolivia's armed forces maintain fireworks stocks for national holidays and ceremonial use, and the depot at Viacha has operated for years without a publicly reported incident of this scale.

The blast is the second major military accident in Bolivia this year, following the crash of a Bolivian Air Force C-130 earlier in 2026, and it lands on a government still recovering politically from the road blockades that paralyzed La Paz in May. President Rodrigo Paz's administration, less than a year old, has faced repeated questions about the state of the country's public infrastructure and emergency response.

Officials have not said how much explosive material was stored at the site, or how it was separated from occupied buildings. That two separate detonations were recorded, rather than one, points to a store of pyrotechnics igniting in sequence — which is also why firefighters treated the site as still dangerous hours after the fire was reported.

The defence ministry said it would release a fuller casualty count once search teams complete their work on the site. Local hospitals in La Paz reported treating burn and blast injuries through Friday night.