Fire at Saudi Aramco oil workers’ compound kills at least 10
259 injuries reported after blaze involving 130 cars in basement of residential complex in Khobar city
At least 10 people have been killed and 259 oil workers injured after a fire swept through a Saudi Aramco residential complex in the kingdom’s Khobar city.
The fire broke out on Sunday at a rented residential complex made up of at least eight residential towers, and has now been extinguished, Saudi Arabia’s SPA agency reported.
Civil Defence authorities said 130 cars in the basement of the building caught fire, causing the blaze to spread quickly. Witnesses said the fire burned for almost six hours, according to Reuters.
A search of the buildings revealed the toll of fatalities, Colonel Ali bin Saad Al-Qahtani, the spokesman for the Civil Defence agency in the Eastern Region, was quoted as saying by SPA.
“The 10 deaths included three Canadians of Asian descent, a Pakistani person and a Nigerian woman”, he said.
Around 80 people of different nationalities are still receiving hospital treatment, while 179 injured people have been discharged, SPA said.
Al-Qahtani said preliminary investigations indicated that the cause of the accident was an electric short circuit in an electrical transformer in the basement area of the complex.
