Accident leaves five injured, no fatalities
An explosion occurred in a wheat silo at the North Port of Split earlier today, reports index.hr on April 14th 2017.
The facility is located in Vranjic area north of Split. No official statement has yet been released, but the preliminary investigation at the site shows that the accident occurred on the seventh floor of the wheat silo due to high concentration of flammable gases. A group of welders was at work nearby and a spark supposedly caused a following combustion.
Five people were hospitalized, two of them suffering third-degree burns on 50% of their bodies. They are currently being treated in the ICU in Clinical Hospital Center Split. The other three patients have suffered less serious burns and will be released upon receiving treatment, as stated by Joško Juričić, a surgeon at CHC Split who supervised the triage of the injured. The entire silo was thoroughly searched after the explosion to ensure no workers have remained trapped inside the facility.
The silo suffered great damage, along with multiple vehicles parked in the vicinity. The investigators from the Forensic Science Center Ivan Vučetić in Zagreb are to carry out the official investigation to determine the cause of the explosion.
The explosion happened around noon and has been covered by local media throughout the day, but a couple of foreign news sites have put a very strange spin on the accident. Gulf News first reported a story titled “Big blast hits airport at Croatia’s second-biggest city: Report”, later altering the headline that currently says “Big blast hits Croatia’s second-biggest city, 5 injured: Local media”.
TravelWireNews went a step further, leaving out the factually accurate details and reporting only the part where “a huge explosion shook the international airport at Split city in Croatia”. Both sites referred to Russia Today as the source, where no mention of today’s explosion is to be found. Even if we turned a blind eye to the blatant disregard of professional ethics, it’s hard to grasp the nerve required to make up an airport explosion headline – especially in the age when any mention of bombs and high-traffic areas in the same sentence makes people twitch.To be clear, no explosion happened at the airport in Split and we’re putting that one in the fake news drawer, but it wouldn’t be a surprise to see the story getting even more out of hand. Take a look at what actually happened in the video below:
