Alwaght- Firefighters contained a blaze at Lebanon’s Zahrani oil facility on Monday, the latest blow to a nation grappling with a crippling fuel and power shortages.
“The fire has been contained,” Energy Minister Walid Fayad, said, according to a statement on Twitter published by the prime minister’s office, saying he had requested a report on the cause of the fire that struck a tank with fuel belonging to Lebanon’s army.
The facility at Zahrani, around 8 km (5 miles) south of the city of Sidon, houses one of the country’s main power stations.
Lebanon, which is in the throes of an economic meltdown, has been hit by a string of calamities including the catastrophic chemicals explosion at Beirut port last year which killed more than 200 people and devastated swathes of the city.
Lebanese have had to increasingly rely on private generators for power, with expensive fuel oil bills, as the state electricity company provided a few if any hours of service a day to their districts.
