According to the spokesman for the industrial park where the explosion took place, Dedy Kurniawan, eight of the fatalities were Indonesians and five were Chinese. The accident took place around 5:30 am local time (9:30 pm on Saturday in Lisbon) at a factory of the Indonesia Tsingshan Stainless Steel (ITSS) company in the Morowali industrial park.
#BREAK | 12 dead, 39 injured in explosion at nickel processing plant in Indonesia: statement
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The initial tally of casualties from this explosion indicated twelve deaths.
The island of Sulawesi is a major production center for nickel, a base metal used mainly in electric car batteries and in the production of stainless steel. China has invested in nickel in that country, but labor and safety conditions are often criticized.
According to the first elements of the investigation, the APF agency said the explosion occurred during repair work on a furnace.
A flammable liquid began to burn and the fire spread to the oxygen tanks, which exploded, the spokesman explained. Dedy Kurniawan, quoted by Efe agency, said emergency services took about four hours to extinguish the fire.
In a statement, Morowali’s Labor Party called for an investigation into what happened and denounced the existence of an insecurity and safety problem in the nickel industry.
Indonesia has the world’s largest deposits of nickel, a mineral highly sought after due to the rise of electric vehicles, which has attracted increasing Chinese investment.
Source: DN
