Firefighters control a fire that ravaged a fuel tank in southern Lebanon | Globalism

The Lebanese army even evacuated the area amid fears that the fire could spread and cause an explosion, according to Al-Jadeed TV channel. Traffic near the oil facility has also been diverted for safety reasons.

A witness said the fire, which threw a huge plume of smoke into the sky, appears to have been put out.

“The fire has been contained,” Energy Minister Walid Fayyad said in a statement on Twitter published by the Prime Minister’s Office.

He also requested a report on the cause of the fire that hit a Lebanese army fuel tank.

A security source told Reuters that nearby storage tanks were being cooled to prevent the spread of fire and that it was diverting traffic from facilities located in a sparsely populated area.

A facility in Zahrani, about 8 kilometers south of Sidon, houses one of the country’s main power plants.

The fire is the latest disaster to hit Lebanon, where a fuel shortage amid a deep economic crisis has shut down the country’s two largest power plants, one in Zahrani and the other in Deir Ammar, on Saturday. Closure Cause a power outage no country.

The Ministry of Energy said on Sunday (10) that electricity was restored after the Lebanese army supplied the two plants with about 6000 kiloliters of gas oil.

Lebanon is going through a serious economic crisis and political chaos that has exacerbated it Beirut port explosion a year ago. In September, the country finally managed to reach the formation new governmentAppointing Najib Mikati as prime minister.

The Lebanese have increasingly relied on private generators to generate electricity, with expensive fuel oil bills, as the state-owned electricity company provides only a few hours of service to citizens a day.

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