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Algerian Gas Explosion Kills 23, Wounds 74
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Flames light the sky after the explosion at Algeria's largest refinery in Skikda
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ALGIERS
(IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - At least 23 people were killed
and 74 injured when a huge explosion ripped through a liquefied
natural gas plant near the eastern Algerian port of Skikda, in the
country's worst industrial accident since independence in 1962, the
state energy group Sonatrach said Tuesday, January 20.
Algerian
state radio said nine people were missing since the blast, which
occurred at 6:40 pm (1740 GMT) Monday, January 19, reported Agence
France-Presse (AFP).
Algerian
President Abdelaziz Bouteflika interrupted a visit to Algeria's third
largest city, Constantine, to visit the disaster site.
Energy
and Mining Minister Chakib Khelil told the broadcast after visiting
the site that it was not yet possible to say what caused the blast.
He
added it was unclear how many people were working in the area at the
time and rescue workers were digging through the wreckage in case more
bodies were buried there.
Khelil
said the explosion destroyed three liquefaction units at the plant, a
huge complex lying 500 kilometers east of the capital Algiers which
produced 23 percent of the country's liquefied natural gas (LNG).
Output
would have to be stepped up at the Arzew complex, near Oran in western
Algeria, which produced the other 77 percent, he said.
The
minister said 26 people were still under observation in Skikda
hospital but 43 others had been discharged after receiving treatment.
Another
five people were taken to hospital in Annaba, a port city about 100
kilometers further east.
A
foreman in a storage depot at the complex told the radio that he heard
"strange noises and abnormal vibrations coming from a boiler and
valves before the explosion."
A
woman living close to the plant, about 10 kilometers outside Skikda,
recalled: "There was a heavy blast and everything started to
shake and the windows of my apartment were blown out."
Speaking
haltingly, she said the complex was engulfed in smoke and flames.
"We
all ran out, we helped the handicapped and the old people," she
said, adding that many of them "were in shock and the children
were crying."
A
local official, in charge of health in the Skikda region, told state
radio that a fire at the plant had been brought under control early
Tuesday after raging for almost eight hours.
The
Skikda complex included six plants for processing gas and oil products
and employs 12,000 people. It exported 15 million tons of LNG and oil
products to Europe each year.
Unlike
most other major petroleum exporters, which sell mostly crude oil,
Algeria relies to a great extent on exports of gas, a cleaner and
lighter energy source, for its foreign currency earnings.
The
hydrocarbons sector brought in 24 billion dollars last year, or 96
percent of the country's export revenues, and natural gas and LNG
accounted for more than half of that.
The
production of LNG was estimated at 26.9 billion cubic meters and its
share of the export earnings of the gas sector at 45 percent.
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