Skip to main content

Explosion at Hungary petrochemical plant kills 1, injures 7

TISZAÚJVÁROS, Hungary (AP) — An explosion at a petrochemical plant in Hungary on Friday killed one person and injured several others, according to a statement by Hungarian energy company Mol Group, which owns the plant.

The explosion in Tiszaújváros, in eastern Hungary, occurred during a restart of the plant following maintenance, Prime Minister Péter Magyar said in a post on social media. He added that seven people had suffered burn injuries during the blast.

Five helicopters transported the injured to hospitals in the cities of Miskolc and Debrecen, according to Minister of Economy and Energy István Kapitány. In a social media post, Kapitány wrote that a disaster response mobile laboratory did not detect any concentrations of hazardous materials above the threshold limit.

Both Kapitány and Mol CEO Zsolt Hernádi are en route to the site of the explosion, Magyar said.

“We express our sincere condolences to the family of the deceased and wish the injured a speedy recovery,” Magyar wrote on Facebook.

A spokesperson for the regional disaster management authority told state news agency MTI that the fire caused by the explosion at the plant had been extinguished. Dávid Dojcsák said that cleanup operations were still underway and emergency units were securing the site.

Iran attacks Bahrain and Kuwait following US strikes, threatens to end talks to end the war

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard launched drone and missile attacks Sunday targeting Bahrain and Kuwait in response to U.S. airstrikes that hit the Islamic Republic, and threatened a “complete halt” could come to negotiations to end the war if Washington continues its attacks. Efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf that once carried a fifth of the world's oil and natural gas, without Iran's direct oversight sparked the crossfire now gripping the region. A multinational maritime body overseen by the U.S. Navy said Saturday that it would expand a route near Oman in the Strait of Hormuz to allow for both inbound and outbound traffic — setting up a new flashpoint with Tehran. Iran insists it alone must govern the strait after the war, upending decades of the world considering that the strait was international waters free for all, despite its sitting in Iran and Oman's territorial waters. Tehran has twice attacked vessels going through the Oman route, backed by a United Nations agency, in recent days. Early Sunday, the U.S. military’s Central Command said it struck Iranian military “surveillance infrastructure, communication systems, air defense sites, drone storage facilities and minelayer capabilities” following an attack on a ship at sea early Saturday morning. That ship, the Panamanian-flagged tanker Kiku, carried crude oil for the state-run energy company of Qatar, a key negotiator between Iran and the United States.
Read Next Story