The seven Marines killed at Nevada's Hawthorne Army depot were all stationed out of Camp Lejeune in North Carolina and were at the Hawthorne depot for a training exercise, according to Fox News live on Tuesday, March 19, 2013. Along with the seven Marines killed, at least seven others were wounded when a mortar exploded during the exercise overnight.
According to NBC News on Tuesday, there are conflicting reports coming out of this Nevada desert depot. One account has a 60-millimeter mortar shell exploding in a tube just as the Marines were getting ready to fire it. The other report has the mortar shell exploding as the Marines picked it up and were getting ready to load it into the tube.
The accident happened Monday night about 10 p.m. at this ammunition storage and training facility in the Nevada desert, just east of the California boundary. The injured were taken to two hospitals with one trauma center as far away as 100 miles. A Renown Regional Medical Center spokesperson in Reno said the injuries included trauma and fractures.
Fox News live reports they got word that there's been a “world-wide ban” on using the same type of mortar shells since the explosion at Hawthorne, but the Marines said they hadn't heard that report.
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