A massive fire has broken out in a chemical factory in Kharkhada, India
A massive fire has broken out in a chemical factory in Kharkhada area of Uttar Pradesh’s Meerut. Six fire tenders have reached the spot, and firefighting operations are under. Senior officials have also rushed to the spot.
No reports of injuries so far.
Courtesy of latestly.com
Six injured in Prai factory explosion, Malaysia
Six workers sustained minor injuries during an explosion in a fire which broke out at a steel factory here this afternoon.
The Prai Fire and Rescue Department was alerted to the incident about 4.28pm.
At the height of the blaze, thick black smoke could be seen even from the island.
Operation officer Azrul Khairi Abu Bakar said when they arrived at the scene, they found a fire and explosion had broke out inside the boiler house inside the three-storey steel structure.
“About 30 per cent of the boiler and steel structure went up in flames.
“Six workers, in their 40s, who helped put out the fire were slightly injured following an explosion,” he said today.
The workers were sent to hospital for treatment by the company’s officials.
Azrul Khairi said firefighters proceeded to cool the hot liquid inside the boiler.
The cause of the fire and losses are still under probe.
Courtesy of nst.com.my
Gas explosion leaves 4 dead, 1 injured in coal mine in north China’s Shanxi Province
Four people have been confirmed dead and another injured in a gas explosion in a coal mine in north China’s Shanxi Province, according to local authorities on Tuesday.
The explosion happened in the mine owned by Lu’an Group at around 2am on Tuesday. The rescue work has ended. An investigation into the cause of the blast is under way.
The mine has an annual production capacity of 1.2 million tonnes.
Courtesy of gulfnews.com
In Syria, the promising olive harvest, destroyed by fires
Souheil Dib was eagerly awaiting the harvest of olives from his farm in Tartus, in western Syria, but fires have destroyed entire areas of Syria in recent days, leaving the branches of his olive trees charred.
61-year-old Dib inspects each branch of these trees inherited from his father for the slightest sign of life, but they all snap in his hands.
“It had a hundred trees,” he says resigned. “I have never seen a fire like it in my life.”
Favored by high temperatures, some 150 fire outbreaks broke out at dawn on Friday in the coastal provinces of Tartus and Latakia (west) as well as Homs (center), destroying more than 9,000 hectares of agricultural land, forests, orchards and olive groves , according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha).
Three people died in Latakia, according to the health ministry, and 25,000 people have been evacuated in the three provinces, according to Ocha.
Authorities announced Sunday that they had controlled the fire. On Monday, the layer of ash that covered the disaster area was still smoky and the surrounding mountains were huge charred surfaces.
With the economic crisis that the country is suffering after more than nine years of war, Souheil Dib had this year on the harvest to guarantee its needs for oil and olives.
“Our hopes were placed on this season to compensate for our successive losses (…) The olives were already ripe and fat and if it had not been for these fires we would be preparing today to harvest them”, laments this man who has spent his life taking care of these trees.
Courtesy of web24.news
Truck and petrol tanker collide causing an explosion in Lagos, Nigeria
A head-on collision between a 40feet container truck and a petrol tanker has resulted into an explosion on the Otedola Bridge along Lagos/Ibadan Expressway on Saturday.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the accident occurred at 2am when the 40ft containerised truck, loaded with fabric, had a brake failure while moving inward Berger.
In the process, the truck collided with a tanker loaded with 33,000 litres of PMS.
The impact of the collision resulted in a fire explosion.
The Director-General, Lagos State Emergency Management Agency, Dr. Olufemi Oke-Osanyintolu, confirmed the accident.
Oke-Osanyintolu said: “On arrival at the incident scene it was discovered that a 40fit containerised truck loaded with fabric had a brake failure while moving inward Berger.
“The truck collided with a tanker loaded with 33000 litres of PMS (petrol) while the impact of the collision resulted in the fire outbreak.
“No casualty was recorded.
“However, the fire affected the 40ft containerised truck and high tension wire at the spot.”
Oke-Osanyintolu advised commuters to take the Ojota or 7UP exits until the backlog of traffic eases.
He said the Agency’s responders, LRU Fire, Lagos State Fire service, Federal Road Safety Corps and Lagos Neighbourhood Security Corps were all present at the incident scene.
The LASEMA boss said the damping down has been concluded, while the agency’s equipment would remove the vehicles from the thoroughfare.
A resident of the area, Johnson Adeoye, told NAN that the tanker lost control and rammed into a trailer with the container.
Adeoye said upon the crash, there was fire outbreak, which led to the explosion.
There have been two fire outbreaks occasioned by the explosion of tankers conveying gas in the state.
Courtesy of theeagleonline.com.ng
At least 5 injured in blast, fire at Virginia strip mall, USA
The strip mall contained a vape shop, musical instrument store and recording studio, according to the Daily News-Record. It was a “total loss,” city spokesman Michael Parks said. Damage was also reported to other structures.
Although Gov. Ralph Northam tweeted that state emergency personnel had been deployed to the area after what he called a gas explosion, Harrisonburg Fire Chief Matt Tobia told reporters the cause was under investigation.
Parks, who said the probe will likely take several days, said there’s no indication of foul play.
Harrisonburg, in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, is a city of around 50,000 that’s home to James Madison University.
The university said in a Facebook post that three students from the school’s Army ROTC program who had been participating in a 10-mile race were among those injured. The building where the blast occurred was about 30 yards (27 metres) from the race’s start and finish line, the school said.
One of the students was hospitalized but was expected to be quickly released, JMU said. Two other students were treated at the scene and released, according to the post.
The university said the other two injured people were not affiliated with JMU. The city’s update, posted on Twitter around 5:30 p.m., said they had been flown to the University of Virginia’s medical centre in serious condition and were “now stable.”
Parks said it wasn’t immediately clear if those victims were affiliated with one of the centre’s businesses.
Tobia said when crews arrived, the injured were outside of the structure.
Families who lived nearby told TV station WHSV the blast shook their homes.
“It woke me up personally and I mean, I knew right away that it was something not normal,” Katie Landes told the station. “So, I looked right outside the window that was right by me and I saw that there was the beginning of some serious smoke going on.”
Courtesy of yorktonthisweek.com
Landslide buries 22 army personnel at Quang Tri mountain in Vietnam
A sudden mountain landslide buried at least 22 members of an army economic group in the central province of Quang Tri early Sunday.
The landslide hit an area of more than a hectare at around 1 a.m. Mountain rocks pummeled lodgings of the Army Economic Group 337 in Huong Phung Commune. The buildings accommodated many military officers and soldiers, said Ha Ngoc Duong, vice chairman of the commune.
“From 2 a.m. until now, there have been four to five landslides, exploding like bombs and it feels like the whole mountain is about to collapse,” Duong said.
Torrential downpours hampered rescue efforts in Huong Phung, and the mountain is likely to continue to slide, he added.
Five people have been rescued and at least 22 military personnel are suspected to be buried.
Lieutenant General Phan Van Giang, Chief of the General Staff, said that Army Economic Group 337 belonged to Military Region 4. “Due to bad weather, those who participated in the search had to find safer rescue measures.”
Military Region 4 has been holding a memorial service for 13 martyrs who perished at ranger station 67 in Thua Thien-Hue Province while looking for missing workers at the Rao Trang 3 hydropower plant in the province and dealing with the mountain landslide in Huong Phung Commune, Hung Hoa District, Quang Tri.
“Last night, I ordered all units in the area of Military Region 4, Military Region 5 to organize inspections to detect landslide risks, but the accident happened before we could finish,” Giang said.
Ha Sy Dong, Vice Chairman of the Quang Tri People’s Committee, said that the province has set up a command center in Huong Hoa District for rescue operations.
Currently, the Ho Chi Minh Highway’s western branch, which leads to Huong Phung Commune, has been seriously affected by the landslides.
Authorities sent excavators to the scene at 2 a.m. to clear the road.
Courtesy of e.vnexpress.net
Six workers suffocate after falling into factory’s chemical tank in Karachi, Pakistan
Six workers suffocated on Saturday while trying to clean a chemical tank of a garment company’s factory near Naurus Chowrangi in the SITE Industrial Area.
After receiving information that some workers were trapped in a chemical tank, police and rescue workers from different welfare organisations arrived at the factory and took the six victims to a nearby private hospital, where doctors pronounced them dead on arrival.
Their bodies were later taken to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, where a medico-legal officer examined them and confirmed that the six workers had suffocated. Police said that the tank of the garment factory was
full of chemicals and the workers had been trying to clean it when they lost consciousness.
They added that according to their preliminary investigation, the six workers had suffocated due to a poisonous gas because the tank contained a chemical substance.
Officials said that the tank was approximately 50 feet deep and it was half filled with chemicals, adding that one worker had initially climbed down the tank to clean it, but he fell unconscious there.
They said that according to their investigation so far, one of the workers had apparently fallen into the tank and then the others followed him while trying to save him. They added that they are conducting further investigation to confirm how the unfortunate incident occurred.
Police said the were identified as Ramesh, Boora, Ghairdari, Kashan, Naseeb and Shoaib, adding that the incident had occurred in the wee hours but it was brought to their families’ notice after they reached the factory to inquire why they had not returned home all night.
Their families also held a protest and blamed the factory management for the incident. They said that a case should be registered against the factory administration, whose negligence had caused six deaths.
They also said that machines are now available for cleaning chemical tanks because of the presence of poisonous gases, but factory owners use their workers for the purpose to save money. They demanded that the government ensure an efficient labour inspection mechanism to address the problem of poor occupational safety & health conditions in the industrial sector.
SHO Ayaz Khan said that the statements of the factory’s owner and management as well as witnesses are being recorded, adding that a case would be registered if any criminal element is found or if the families of the victims ask the police to register a case. This is not the first such incident to have occurred in Karachi.
Several workers have lost their lives in similar incidents. On December 4, 2015, the owner and seven workers of a pickle factory in Korangi’s Darul Islam Society had suffocated after falling in a chemical tank.
On November 20, 2015, three workers of an oil company in the Bin Qasim area had suffocated while cleaning a tank. On May 15, 2016, five workers had suffocated at a factory in the Korangi Industrial Area.
Courtesy of thenews.com.pk
Flood death toll rises to 18 in Cambodia as over 25,000 evacuated
Flash floods in Cambodia have so far left 18 people dead and forced the evacuation of 25,192 people, Seak Vichet, a spokesman for the National Committee for Disaster Management (NCDM), said on Friday.
Tropical storm-triggered rains caused floods in 19 of the kingdom’s 25 cities and provinces since the beginning of the month, he said, adding that 212,676 people have also been affected by the floods.
“By Friday morning, the floods have killed 18 people, including eight children,” Vichet told Xinhua, adding that the worst-hit provinces included Pursat, Battambang, Banteay Meanchey, and Kandal as well as southwestern suburb of Phnom Penh.
The floods have also inundated 51,133 houses and 204,650 hectares of rice and other crops, the spokesman said. So far, 12,958 hectares of the affected rice and other crops have been destroyed.
Transportation has also been disrupted, as several major roads in the worst-hit provinces have been closed.
Water Resources and Meteorology Minister Lim Keanhor said on Thursday that further rain, wind and high waves are expected on Oct. 17-19 because the kingdom is suffering from the impact of tropical storm Saudel, which could lead to further flooding.
“People living in plains, along waterways and near mountains, fishermen and sea travelers should be extra-vigilant to avoid any possible dangers,” he said in a press statement.
Floods usually hit Cambodia between August and October. Last year, flash floods claimed 30 lives and storms killed eight people and injured 131 others, according to the NCDM.
Courtesy of xinhuanet.com
Please Donate To Support My Work
Comments