ZAGREB, October 10, 2018 – Eight workers were injured and one person has died in a fire that broke out after an explosion in the oil refinery in Bosanski Brod, a town on the River Sava in the Bosnian Serb entity of Republika Srpska, around 9.30 pm on Tuesday, and they were all hospitalised, local media reported.
The refinery is located immediately on the border with Croatia. The pollution coming from the refinery has been an environmental and health hazard for citizens of Slavonski Brod in Croatia for years.
Bosanski Brod Mayor Ilija Jovičić said the explosion occurred in the production unit No. 4, after which a fire spread. It took firefighters one hour to contain the blaze.
The injured workers are not in critical condition. There is still no information on what caused the explosion or on its impact on the environment.
The management of Optima Group, the local company that runs the refineries at Bosanski Brod and Modriča on behalf of their Russian owner Zarubezhneft, has not commented on the accident yet.
Mirko Duspara, the mayor of Slavonski Brod, the Croatian town on the opposite bank of the River Sava, told reporters after a meeting of a crisis task force that local stations measuring harmful substances in the air showed that there was no danger for local residents and that the concentration of harmful gases in the air was at the lowest possible level.
