Massive fire at Sharjah Port

Transcript

00:00Residents in Sharjah woke up yesterday morning to thick black smoke billowing up into the

00:09sky after a massive fire that gutted an oil depot in Port Khalid.

00:14Sharjah police said the fire broke out at 2.30 early on Saturday morning at the premises

00:18of the Emirates Oil Refining Company.

00:21The blaze gutted more than 10,000 square meters at what port workers say was a sunflower oil

00:25storage facility.

00:27Officials say three workers were injured but no one is believed to have been seriously

00:30hurt.

00:31About six employees were working in the depot when the fire broke out.

00:34Specialist offshore firefighters tackled the blaze throughout the night and into Saturday

00:38afternoon.

00:39Nearby tugboats sprayed seawater onto the smouldering fire.

00:42It was still raging at around 2pm on Saturday, 14 hours after it started.

00:47It's a major fire and one that officials say could have sparked an even bigger one.

00:51It was just 200 meters away from a nearby oil storage facility.

00:55Nevertheless, officials have said the port will remain open for business while forensic

00:59teams carry out an investigation into the fire.

01:02It's the second such incident in as many years.

01:04A huge fire also gutted the depot of another oil company in August last year.

01:09Ashaf Helmi, Gulf News.