Death toll from fire at Russia’s gas chemical complex rises to 7

Burc Eruygur

The death toll from a fire that broke out Tuesday at the Amur Gas Chemical Complex in Russia’s Far East has risen to seven, the company said on Wednesday.

The fire at the construction site near the Russian-Chinese border has been extinguished, while the burning of residual industrial gases is currently being undertaken under the supervision of specialists, the company said in a statement on Telegram.

The bodies of four Chinese workers were found during search and rescue operations, and a total of seven deaths, including a Russian citizen and six Chinese citizens, have been confirmed, the statement noted.

“The fate of nine more Chinese citizens … remains unknown. Search and rescue operations are ongoing,” the statement said, adding that 152 people had sought medical attention.

Of those, 36 were hospitalized with injuries of varying severity, while a special Russian Emergency Situations Ministry flight arrived to transport some of the injured to medical facilities, according to the statement.

Specialists continue to monitor the air at the boundary of the nearby town of Svobodny, and no exceedances of maximum permissible concentrations of controlled substances were detected, it said.

The company said on Tuesday that, based on preliminary information, the fire occurred in an auxiliary process section of the facility’s pyrolysis unit.

Russia’s Investigative Committee said it is investigating the incident on suspicion of a “violation of safety requirements” and working to determine its exact cause.

The complex, which brands itself as “one of the world’s largest enterprises for production of polyethylene and polypropylene of the brands in-demand in the Russian and global markets,” is a joint project of Russian petrochemicals company SIBUR and Chinese oil and gas enterprise Sinopec that has yet to begin production.