Tanker trucks filled with fuel offered by Iraq wait to empty their content at the oil refinery of Zahrani, near the southerm Lebanese city of Sidon (Saida) in August 2020. Photo: Mahmoud Zayyat/AFP via Getty Images
Firefighters extinguished a blaze that erupted in a fuel storage tank at Lebanon's Zahrani oil facility, AP reports.
Details: No casualties have been reported. Energy Minister Walid Fayad said the fire started while workers were transferring gasoline from one storage tank to another, per AP. It is not clear what exactly caused the fire.
- Nearly 250,000 liters of gasoline were burned in the incident.
State of play: Lebanese troops had closed the highway connecting Beirut with southern Lebanon following the fire, but it was opened after it was extinguished, AP notes.
- The Zahrani Oil Installation is located approximately 30 miles from Beirut.
What they're saying: "The situation now is almost under full control," Fayad told reporters, per AP.
The big picture: Lebanon has been hit by a series of fuel-related disasters in the past year. Fuel shortages "amid a deep economic crisis forced the country's two biggest power plants, one in Zahrani and the other in Deir Ammar, to shut down on Saturday bringing the already straining power network to a complete halt," Reuters notes.
- A fuel tank explosion in the Akkar region of northern Lebanon in August killed at least 28 people, and a port explosion in Beirut in 2020 killed more than 200.
Editor's note: This story has been updated with additional details throughout.