"We have no protection; there is no justice," Gezim Cani, whose parents died in the explosion, told The New York Times.

Albanians ask why aging weaponry and ammunition was stockpiled near a major highway and the Tirana airport.

Workers at the depot were dismantling shells to allow gunpowder and metal to be sold. The explosion was so powerful it left three craters.

In addition to workers at the plant, the dead included five members of a family who lived across from the plant.

Razije Telhai, one of the employees, told the Times the blast "felt like a nuclear bomb." She survived despite being thrown 60 feet.

The Small Arms Survey, a Geneva group, said there were at least 153 reported explosions at ammunition depots between 1995 and 2007. At least 2,575 people were killed, half of them in a single explosion in Nigeria in 2002.