Three people were injured in an explosion followed by a fire at Romania’s largest petroleum refinery, Petromidia, the Agence France-Presse reported.
The Constanta County Emergency Situations Inspectorate said one of the victims had nearly 45 percent burns on his body. Another person has burns, and there is still no exact information about the third wounded.
Eight fire trucks, two ambulances and a mobile intensive care team were sent to the refinery in the town of Novodari, where the incident took place.
Due to the large amount of smoke, the local population was warned through the RO-ALERT system. At the district level, the so-called “Red plan for intervention”. The holidaymakers who witnessed the explosion experienced a real shock, local media reported.
According to Romanian media, the fire started from a fuel transportation installation and at the moment the teams working to stop the fire are trying to close the valves and cut off the fuel supply.
According to initial estimates, the cloud of smoke is moving towards the sea, not towards the coast, the minister added. He noted that there is a mobile laboratory for monitoring air quality on site.
Videos show beachgoers on Romania’s Black Sea coast shocked by the sight of the huge cloud of black smoke.
Petromidia is the largest and most modern oil refinery in Eastern Europe, located on the Black Sea coast, near Romania’s largest port, Constanta, BGNES said.
It is owned by KazMunayGas International Group (formerly known as Rompetrol Group), which is 100% owned by the Kazakh oil and gas company KazMunayGas.
