Beirut, October 11 (BNA) Official media reported today, Monday, that a massive fire broke out in an oil facility in southern Lebanon, adding that the cause was not immediately known.
The state-run National News Agency said there were no workers near the scene when a fire broke out in a giant petrol tanker in the coastal village of Zahrani. The National News Agency said fire engines rushed to the area to help put out the blaze, the Associated Press reported.
The fire is close to one of Lebanon’s main power stations, which stopped working two days ago due to a lack of fuel. Lebanon is suffering from a serious electricity crisis with electricity cuts of up to 22 hours a day.
Thick black smoke billowed over the area from the Zahrani oil facility, about 50 kilometers (30 miles) south of Beirut.
Authorities closed the main highway linking Beirut to southern Lebanon that runs through Zahrani.
Monday’s fire comes more than a year after a fire in Beirut’s port led to a massive explosion that killed at least 215 people, injured thousands, and destroyed the facility and nearby neighbourhoods. The explosion in the port of Beirut resulted from hundreds of tons of ammonium nitrate, a highly explosive used in fertilizers, that had been improperly stored for years.
Last year, a German company found dangerous nuclear materials stored at the facility in Zahrani. Eight small containers weighing less than 2 kilograms (4.4 lb) containing depleted uranium salts were removed soon after.
Materials have been stored in the facility since the 1950s, when it was operated by the Mediterranean Refinery Company, or Medreco. Medreco was an American company whose major shareholders were Mobil and Caltex and was active in Lebanon for four decades until the late 1980s.
RAE