Another detonation on oil field
25 dead after explosion at gas station in southern Russia
08/15/2023 03:19 am
Two large fires in Russia claim numerous lives. At least 25 people die in a gas station fire in the Dagestan region. At least two people died as a result of an explosion at an oil field in central Russia. The causes are unclear in each case.
At least 25 people died in a devastating fire at a gas station in the southern Russian region of Dagestan, according to rescue workers. Among them were three children, reported the Interfax news agency, citing local emergency doctors. According to the head of the administration of the Republic of Dagestan Sergey Melikov, the incident happened around 10 p.m. The number of injured is 66, ten of them are still in critical condition, the Ria news agency meanwhile quoted Russian Deputy Health Minister Vladimir Fisenko as saying. A plane had been sent to the Caspian Sea region to bring the injured to Moscow, it said.
The fire broke out on Monday evening in a car workshop near a highway in the Dagestan capital Makhachkala and then triggered explosions that spread to a nearby gas station, the authorities said. How the fire came about is still unclear at this time. Pictures online showed a one-story building on fire. “It looks like wartime here,” an eyewitness told Reuters TV. It took firefighters more than three and a half hours to extinguish the fire, which had spread over an area of 600 square meters, TASS reported, citing the Russian emergency services.
In addition, according to official information, two people died as a result of a powerful explosion at an oil field in central Russia. Five other people were injured, Interfax reported, citing the government of the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug, located east of the Ural Mountains. A fire broke out in around a hundred square meters on the Talinskoye oil field, it said. It was initially unclear how the explosion happened.