THE HAGUE, July 30 (Xinhua) -- An oil refinery of Anglo-Dutch oil and gas giant Shell in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, was closed on Sunday after a major fire broke out on Saturday night.
The fire broke out after short circuit and an explosion at a high-voltage station at the Shell Pernis plant in Rotterdam, the biggest refinery in Europe, on Saturday evening at 10:30 p.m. The fire brigade had the fire under control at 3:00 a.m. on Sunday morning. No one was injured.
The fire led to a power failure and part of the oil refinery was already shut down out of precaution after the fire broke out. On Sunday the whole plant was closed when becoming clear that one of the factories was hit.
Shell is currently busy with deleting gasses, the flaring, to prevent any more problems. This causes large flames coming out of the chimneys during the whole day, a bad smell and some noise disturbance to the people living close to the plant, but causes no danger to the environment.
According to the local Safety Region organization, it can take days to repair the whole factory chain. The environmental effects are being monitored by the environmental service Rijnmond DCMR.
