Explosion at Ispat Sidex
A powerful explosion followed by a fire affected
Romania's biggest steel producer, LNM-owned Ispat Sidex' coke chemical plant around 5 pm on Sunday August 1, 2004. The equipment that exploded was a power exhauster, used to exhaust the coke gas following the coking of coal.
The blast did not cause any casualties but halted
production for approximately 15 hours. Firefighters put out the fire in about 2 hours. However there is still concern about how the pollution of the environment will be prevented.
News coming out from company officials following the explosion is stating that the cause of the explosion was most likely due to a breakdown of the electric power line because just before the explosion the power had been interrupted and then resumed.