SpaceWar.com - Your World At War
Fire at Iraqi oil refinery injures 10: civil defence
Arbil, Iraq, June 13 (AFP) Jun 13, 2024
A massive fire at an oil refinery in Iraqi Kurdistan injured at least 10 people including firefighters battling to control the blaze, which was ongoing Thursday, the civil defence agency reported.

The fire broke out in an asphalt tank on Wednesday night before spreading to a second refinery on a road southwest of Arbil, capital of the autonomous Kurdistan region.

Firefighters worked through the night battling to extinguish the flames, which sent thick plumes of black smoke and balls of orange flame into the sky, an AFP photographer reported.

"More than 10 people were injured, mainly men from the Arbil civil defence," the agency said in a statement, noting three fire trucks were burned.

The cause of the blaze was still unknown, it said.

"The fire started in one refinery before spreading to another," the statement said. Four fuel tanks had been affected.

With Iraq experiencing scorching summers, the country has seen multiple fires in recent weeks, affecting shopping centres, warehouses and hospitals.

Iraq is one of the world's biggest oil producers, and crude oil sales make up 90 percent of Iraqi budget revenues.

But exports from the Kurdistan region have been halted for more than a year in a dispute over legal and technical issues.


ADVERTISEMENT




Space News from SpaceDaily.com
China Focus: Chinese scientist details first planned Mars sample-return mission Tianwen 3
NASA says it will lose about 20 percent of its workforce
Building blocks of life found in distant star system suggest origins in interstellar space

24/7 Energy News Coverage
Trump administration expected to say greenhouse gases aren't harmful
MicroCarb satellite launches to map global carbon dioxide emissions from space
Rollable solar array by GalaxySpace redefines satellite compactness and power efficiency

Military Space News, Nuclear Weapons, Missile Defense
Airbus CO3D satellites begin mission to generate high precision global 3D map
BlackSky to supply satellite imagery and analytics for Latin American security operations
GovSat selects Thales Alenia Space to build secure satellite for military communications

24/7 News Coverage
First wildfire images reveal FireSat's unmatched detection capabilities
MetOp Second Generation satellite fully fuelled ahead of August launch
MicroCarb satellite launch marks new era in urban carbon tracking



All rights reserved. Copyright Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.