AN INVESTIGATION IS underway after four people were killed in an explosion and fire at an oil refinery in Wales last night.
The explosion at around 6.20pm last night caused a fire at a Chevron oil refinery in Pembrokeshire in Wales in which another worker suffered serious burns, reports BBC News.
Local police said the explosion was in a 730 cubic metre storage tank where maintenance was being carried out, according to The Guardian.
The refinery employs 1,400 people and the company confirmed that the four people who died were contractors to the plant.
The explosion sent thick plumes of black smoke into the sky with the first news of the explosion breaking on Twitter as users posted pictures of the thick smoke from the distance, reports the Daily Mirror.
One witness Marcus Lutwyche, owner of a shop in the village of Angle, told Wales Online: “I ran to the front and saw a huge plume of smoke. It was black and filled the sky. It must have been 50 or so metres wide.”
The owner of the refinery, Chevron Corporation, is based in California.
In March, Chevron agreed to sell the Pembroke refinery along with other marketing and logistics assets throughout the UK and Ireland to Valero Energy for around $1.73 billion (€1.2 billion)
- additional reporting from AP
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