TEHRAN — A major fire that tore through an oil refinery in the Iranian
capital had been brought under control on Thursday, but was still not
completely extinguished.
اضافة اعلان
The blaze broke out at 7:30pm (1500 GMT) on Wednesday after an explosion at
the facility caused by a leaking gas pipe, sparking an inferno that left 11
people injured, the authorities said.
"The fire at the refinery has been brought under control," the
official IRNA news agency reported in the morning, citing Shaker Khafai,
spokesman for Tehran Oil Refining Company.
A column of black smoke was still visible over the site of the blaze in
mid-afternoon, AFP journalists reported, although it was not as thick as the
day before.
"Eleven people, including nine firefighters tackling the blaze, were
injured," Mojtaba Khaledi, spokesman for the national rescue service, told
AFP.
Four required hospitalization, including three firefighters, he added.
Teams of firefighters were seen battling the blaze in footage from the scene
broadcast by state television.
The authorities have launched an investigation into the incident.
The refinery is located in a large industrial zone on Tehran's outskirts,
only a few hundred meters from residential areas.
It has been in operation since 1968 and has a capacity of 250,000 barrels
per day, according to IRNA.
Industrial accidents are common in Iran.
On May 23, nine people were injured in a blast at a plant producing
explosive materials in central Iran, local media reported, while three days
later, a pipeline explosion at a petrochemical complex near Iran's Gulf coast
left one dead.
Meanwhile, Iran views arch-rival Israel as the top suspect behind two
incidents in the past year at its nuclear sites that Tehran has branded acts of
sabotage.
Some in the Islamic republic see the various events as the result of attacks
by Israeli agents, while others consider US sanctions — which almost completely
isolate Iran from the rest of the world, complicating the maintenance of
industrial facilities — as a more likely cause.