Home > Turkmenistan > Journalists Discuss Turkmenistan Explosion on al-Jazeera

Journalists Discuss Turkmenistan Explosion on al-Jazeera

Jul 14, 2011
By
Turkmenistan
No Comments Yet

After the July 7 explosion in Abadan, citizen journalists flocked to social media sites, including the Turkmen social network Teswirler, to ascertain the cause and casualties of the event.

Although the government initially reported that the explosion had been caused by a heat wave that sparked the detonation of stored fireworks in a warehouse and that no citizens had been hurt in the event, the official story has since changed.

The citizen journalists, it turns out, were correct in both cause and casualties: Turkmen officials now report that 13 civilians and two soldiers were killed in the blast and that stored ammunition – not fireworks – prompted the explosion.

For more information, watch the managing editor of neweurasia and the author of the blog post we linked to several days ago discuss the role social media played in the event.


About the Author

Michelle Timmerman

Michelle Timmerman is a an editorial intern at Transitions Online. She is in her third year at Harvard College, where she studies the history and literature of modern Europe. She is a staff writer for the university daily, the Harvard Crimson, and an executive editor of the Crimson’s weekly magazine.
  • Twitter feed loading...