Carelessness blamed for blast near Varna – official
The head of the fire-fighting department of the Bulgarian Interior Ministry, Nikolai Nikolov, said on August 15 that carelessness was the most likely cause of the gas tanker wagon explosion near the Bulgarian city of Varna.
Nikolov said that the most likely cause of the explosion was a gas leak, itself the result of a ruptured hose during the process of moving the gas from the tanker wagon into a tanker lorry. Investigators were still trying to establish what actually happened, he told reporters, as quoted by Focus news agency.
Eleven people were injured in the blast, which happened at the Ezerovo railway station, about 10km west of Varna, and the fire that followed the explosion. The number included seven fire-fighters; the rest were bystanders who were working in a nearby warehouse. Two people were still in intensive care, including one man with extensive burns that covered 90 per cent of his body.
Fire fighters from Varna’s thermal power plant were the first on the scene, followed by teams from the Varna fire department and the Varna Airport, Nikolov said. The fire was finally extinguished late on August 14.
(Photo: Eiji Miura)
