Blast at Romania’s biggest oil refinery kills 1, injures 4
Advertisement
Read this article for free:
or
Already have an account? Log in here »
To continue reading, please subscribe:
Monthly Digital Subscription
$1 per week for 24 weeks*
- Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
- Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
- Access News Break, our award-winning app
- Play interactive puzzles
*Billed as $4.00 plus GST every four weeks. After 24 weeks, price increases to the regular rate of $19.95 plus GST every four weeks. Offer available to new and qualified returning subscribers only. Cancel any time.
Monthly Digital Subscription
$4.99/week*
- Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
- Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
- Access News Break, our award-winning app
- Play interactive puzzles
*Billed as $19.95 plus GST every four weeks. Cancel any time.
To continue reading, please subscribe:
Add Free Press access to your Brandon Sun subscription for only an additional
$1 for the first 4 weeks*
*Your next subscription payment will increase by $1.00 and you will be charged $16.99 plus GST for four weeks. After four weeks, your payment will increase to $23.99 plus GST every four weeks.
Read unlimited articles for free today:
or
Already have an account? Log in here »
Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 02/07/2021 (1744 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
BUCHAREST (AP) — An explosion at Romania’s largest oil refinery outside the port city of Constanta on Friday killed one person and injured at least four, authorities said.
Plumes of black smoke could be seen rising from the Navodari Petromidia plant next to the Black Sea, as emergency services airlifted the injured people away for treatment, according to officials.
The refinery operator, Rompetrol Rafinare, said the blaze was later “isolated and stabilized.”
“Internal and external teams are making efforts to put it out in the shortest time,” the company said in a social media post.
The cause of the blast was not immediately clear, but Rompetrol Rafinare’s general manager Felix Crudu Tesloveanu told media that early investigations suggest a cracked pipe may have caused the blast.
An Interior Ministry statement urged residents at the nearby town of Navodari and other areas in the vicinity to close their windows because of the billowing smoke.
Environment Minister Barna Tanczos wrote online that “The explosion can have extremely serious environmental consequences,” and that he has cancelled a working trip in order to assist authorities deal with the blast.
“The direction of the smoke is in the opposite direction to the beach and the city — which is why the citizens are safe,” the ministry statement said. “However, we ask the population to take protective measures by closing (their) windows.”
Octavian Berceanu, the head of Romania’s Environmental Guard, a government environmental protection agency, told The Associated Press that the environmental fallout from the incident is being monitored.
“We don’t have proper data right now,” Berceanu told the AP. “The smoke is going offshore, and some … is going to the beach but it’s not populated there.”
Romania’s environment ministry said Friday that “specialists from the Constanta Environmental Protection Agency have continuously monitored the volatile organic compounds on the site.”
The oil refinery is about 20 kilometers (12.5 miles) from Constanta.