Defense Minister Celso Amorim confirmed the deaths of two navy personnel after an explosion at a Brazilian research base in Antarctica earlier Saturday.

The two, who had been reported missing earlier, were identified as non-commissioned officer Carlos Alberto Vieira Figueiredo and sergeant Roberto Lopes dos Santos.

"In an act of heroism, they were precisely in the area of major risk in a bid to extinguish a fire and they did not succeed," Amorim said.

A third navy personnel named as navy sergeant Luciano Gomes Medeiros was injured in the blast, which occurred after a fire in a room housing energy generators of the Comandante Ferraz research base located in Admiralty Bay, King George Island, near the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula.