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Oil pipeline catches fire
12/08/2003 22:38 - (SA)
Baghdad - A leaking underground oil pipeline caught fire north of Baghdad on Tuesday, spreading a wall of flames 1km up the line before Iraqi firefighters put out the blaze, residents said.
"It started leaking today, and people from the oil department told us this morning they closed the valves and there shouldn't be a problem," said resident Sabiah Esmar, a local meat company employee.
"Then it went up in flames."
Amid pools of thick black crude, long swathes of scalded and smoking earth were visible along the pipeline's route in Al-Taji, about 15km north of downtown Baghdad.
No casualties were reported in the four-hour fire, which began at 12:00 and spread 10-metre-high flames and plumes of black smoke into the sky.
A canal running abreast of the north-south pipeline and which was filled with the leaking oil caught fire, said Esmar, who watched the blaze from his home just 50m away.
"Thank God the wind was towards the west or else the fire would have reached us," he said.
Esmar and other residents said they believed the pipeline ran from Iraq's northern refinery hub of Baiji down to Baghdad. Oil authorities were not available for comment.
Residents said there was no sign of sabotage.
On July 31 saboteurs blew up part of a key oil pipeline near Baiji, about 200km north of Baghdad.
That explosion was seen as a another blow to US plans to resuscitate Iraq's massive but crippled energy sector, although energy officials assured that the damage did not affect refining and distribution operations.
Iraq will need $1.6bn to restore its oil industry, the country's top oil official said earlier this month.
- SAPA
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