Photo: Dean Mouhtaropoulos / Getty Images
Monday, November 25
Texas refinery fire leaves 4 injured
WASHINGTON – A fire at an ExxonMobil refinery in Texas , one of the largest in the United States, left four injured, local authorities reported this Thursday.
The fire began on the 01. 00 local time (07. 00 GMT) at the ExxonMobil plant in Baytown, about 23 miles from Houston, Texas.
The County Sheriff’s Office of Harris, where part of Baytown is located, has described the fire as “a major industrial accident” and the head of that police unit, Ed González, indicated on Twitter that the first investigations suggest that “some kind of explosion occurred inside the plant.”
According to González, three of the injured were transp taken to the hospital by helicopter and one of them by ambulance.
There have been 4 confirmed injuries, 3 of which were life flighted and 1 was taken to the hospital via ambulance. No fatalities have been reported. There is currently no shelter in place.
– HCSOTexas (@HCSOTexas) December 23, 2021
All injured They are stable, explained the head of the ExxonMobil refinery, Rohan Davis, who gave a press conference in a building near the event.
According to Davis, there are no deaths and the rest of the personnel have already been located.
Davis explained that ExxonMobil has been evaluating the air quality and has not detected any problems, so the authorities have not asked residents to take refuge in their homes.
“We deeply regret this disruption, this incident and the inconvenience it may cause to the community,” said Davis.
Residents of the area told local television KHOU, affiliated to CBS, that they felt their homes shaking before the apparent explosion and, at first, they thought it was an earthquake.
Local televisions have also shown images of the huge calls at the refinery, where firefighters have been working to extinguish the fire.
According to the ExxonMobil website, its facilities in Baytown consist of a chemical plant, another plant to process the hydrocarbon olefin and an oil refinery, the fourth largest in the United States and with capacity to process 560, 500 barrels of oil per day. Some 7 work in these facilities, 00 0 people.