AUTHORITIES in central Russia are battling a fire raging through an arms depot, storing around 10,000 tonnes of shells, that forced the evacuation of more than 28,000 people.

As a result of the night-time blaze at the arms depot near the city of Izhevsk in the Volga region of Udmurtia, 28 people were injured and eight hospitalised including an eight-year-old child, media reports said.

"A total of more than 28,000 people have been evacuated," the regional emergency ministry said.

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"An eight-year-old girl received a head injury and concussion," an emergency ministry spokesman told the RIA Novosti news agency. The eight hospitalised had shrapnel wounds, he said.

The residents of the neighbouring town of Argyz of around 19,000 people and the nearby village of Pugachyovo were evacuated in buses to nearby villages at a radius of 30 to 60km, officials said.

The defence ministry said that the military personnel at the depot did not sustain any casualties.

"According to a report from the scene at 0630 Moscow time (11.30am AEST), there were no casualties as a result of the fire and exploding shells among the military personnel," the ministry said in a statement.

The fire broke out at the depot located near the village of Pugachyovo near Izhevsk just before midnight local time, the emergency ministry said.

"Depots storing classic artillery shells are burning. The shells are exploding over the whole area of the military unit," the ministry said.

The depot which was housing old ammunition to be destroyed, stored the equivalent of around 58,000 tonnes of TNT, Russian television reported.

Balls of fire rose up from the depot in regular explosions at night, television footage showed, while by morning a thick column of smoke was pouring from the site.

The munitions stored at the depot also included jet-propelled missiles, a source in the law enforcement authorities told the Interfax news agency, but said they were stored without their warheads, making them less dangerous.

"There were definitely jet-propelled missiles there. They were stored in a separate zone in concrete sections," the source said.

"At the moment they do not present a serious threat to the public."

The depot is located inside a secret underground munitions factory, the neighbouring Tatarstan regional emergency ministry said in a statement.

The force of the blast broke windows in the nearby village and the fire burnt down a two-storey building where base personnel lived, the defence ministry said.

The force of the explosions had slightly diminished by early this morning, the emergency ministry. "There is no threat to nearby villages and the town of Izhevsk."

More than 100 firefighters were battling the blaze, along with water-bombing planes and robotic equipment, officials said.

Explosions at military weapons depots are relatively common in Russia and are often linked to ageing equipment and lax enforcement of safety rules.

Late last month a similar fire at a munitions depot in the region of Bashkortostan triggered explosions and forced the evacuation of thousands of residents.