ZAHRANI, Lebanon — Firefighters
in Lebanon put out a huge blaze that raged at a key fuel storage depot Monday
to the relief of many in the country gripped by desperate energy shortages.
اضافة اعلان
There was no immediate report of
casualties from the fire that sent large plumes of dark smoke billowing into
the sky.
The fire broke out around 8am
local time in a large petrol tank belonging to the army at the Zahrani
facilities some 50 kilometers south of Beirut, the National News Agency and
local media said.
An AFP photographer said
firefighters put out the flames at around noon, and civil defense chief Raymond
Khattar told the press the blaze was "under control".
Ziyad al-Zein, head of facilities
at Zahrani, said the fire broke out as the tank was being emptied.
"We noticed an inclination
in the reservoir's roof yesterday and took immediate measures... this morning
to transfer its contents," he said, adding that "it would have been a
disaster if the fire had spread to nearby tanks".
Energy Minister Walid Fayad said
the flames had consumed around 250,000 liters of gasoline and that an
investigation had been launched into the cause of the fire.
The army cordoned off the area,
cutting off roads leading to the depot as well as the main highway linking
Beirut to the country's south, the photographer said.
'Loud bang'
The Zahrani site also houses a
power plant of the same name, and provides 15 percent of the country's fuel
oil.
A worker in a plantation nearby
told AFP he had heard a loud bang before the fire broke out.
The small Mediterranean nation is
battling one of the world's worst economic crises since the 1850s, and has in
recent months struggled to import enough fuel oil for its power plants.
In recent months, Lebanese have
only received one or two hours of state electricity a day.
The fire comes after the
electricity grid went completely offline on Saturday.
That outage came after two key
power plants, including the one in Zahrani, ran out of fuel.
By Sunday limited supply was back
after the army provided gas oil.
Most Lebanese saw no major change
to their daily lives during the blackout, as those who can afford it have
already subscribed to private generators to keep the lights on during the
almost round-the-clock power cuts.
Petrol has also been in short
supply, forcing motorists to queue for hours outside gas stations to fill up
their tanks.
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