A fire broke out at oil giant Shell’s manufacturing site on Pulau Bukom on Friday evening, leaving six workers with burn injuries.
The Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) said they received a call at around 6.15pm about the fire from the Pulau Bukom Manufacturing Site.
Upon its arrival, the fire had already been extinguished by Shell’s emergency response team.
The six victims were sent to the Singapore General Hospital (SGH).
Three of them are in a “critical condition”, said a SGH spokesman. One is in a stable condition, and two others were discharged after receiving outpatient treatment.
In a statement. a Shell spokesperson said: “We are following the progress and treatment of the other workers closely and are working with our contractors to ensure all possible support and assistance are rendered to the injured workers and their families. All other personnel are accounted for at the site.”
Shell also confirmed that the fire was put out within an hour by the site’s first emergency responders and there were no other impact on the site’s operations.
“We are working with the Singapore Civil Defence Force to investigate the incident,” the statement also said.
In the Facebook post, SCDF also said that “contrary to speculation, there is no SCDF personnel among the casualties”.
Pulau Bukom houses the $4.1 billion Shell Eastern Petrochemicals Complex, which opened in May 2010, and is Shell’s largest petrochemical investment.
This is not the first time a fire broke out at Pulau Bukom. In September 2011, more than 100 firefighters helped to put out a fire that raged for 32 hours at the Pulau Bukom refinery. Shell was fined $80,000 the following year for lapses in workplace safety that led to the fire.
Source: www.straitstimes.com
