August 27, 2023. Hellas.
Among those injured, there are 39 firefighters, two policemen and two gendarmes, according to the Romanian Ministry of Interior (MAI).
About 3,000
people living around the site of the blast were evicted, according to
Digi24.ro.
According
to the official reports, there were two explosions. The first one occurred as
employees of the LPG station were transferring highly inflammable fuel from one
tanker truck to another, according to eyewitnesses quoted by Digi24.ro. At that
moment, there were six tank trucks each with 10,000 liters of LPG at the LPG
station.
The
firefighters who intervened after the first blast were injured by the second
one, which probably occurred at one of the other tankers.
The blasts,
which took place late in the evening, were visible from Bucharest, 22
kilometers away from the site, according to Hotnews.ro.
The firm
that owned the LPG station didn’t have an operating permit and the fuel station
had been closed in 2020, head of the Emergency Situations Department (DSU) Raed
Arafat said on Sunday, according to Hotnews.ro.
According
to media reports, the company that owns the station is controlled by the son of
a Social Democrat (PSD) politician – the mayor of Caracal. Prime minister and
head of the Social Democratic Party Marcel Ciolacu, who went to visit the
victims at a hospital in Bucharest, said he didn’t know about this and that his
priority was to save as many lives as possible. He added that whoever was
guilty for the tragedy would answer to the law.
The General
Prosecutor's Office started a criminal investigation.
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