One killed in massive fire at Arbat asphalt factory

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A fire broke out at an asphalt factory near Arbat town in the east of Sulaimani, killing one worker and injuring three others. 

The fire started on Wednesday morning after a tanker carrying bitumen caught fire while trying to discharge its load in one of the storage units inside Zillion Oil Company’s industrial plant, according to Arbat mayor Daban Mohammed.

Saman Nadir, head of Sulaimani Emergency Center (122), the city's ambulance hotline, told Rudaw English that one person was killed in the fire and three others were severely injured.

The fire has been burning for over 9 hours, mainly due to the presence of large amounts of inflammable materials in the storage units.

Rudaw understands that the person killed in the fire was the driver of the tanker and he was from Erbil. Two of the injured workers were from Duhok’s Bardarash and Sulaimani’s Darbandikhan districts, and the third injured worker was from northeast Syria (Rojava) and resided in Duhok.

Hawre Mohammed, the brother of one of the injured, told Rudaw’s Horvan Rafaat that his brother’s injuries, amounting to burns on 15 percent of his body, were less grave than the other two workers’.

According to data from the Kurdistan Region Police Directorate, a total of 7,546 fire incidents were recorded across the Region in 2022.