Americas

Fire crews battle huge storage tank blaze near Brazil’s Port of Santos

Sao Paulo: Dozens of firefighters, 22 fire trucks and one firefighting vessel were engaged in subduing a huge blaze at a tank storage facility near the Port of Santos, Sao Paulo, on Thursday.

Thick columns of black smoke rose high over four of the tanks as more than 80 firefighters battled to contain the inferno.

The facility is run by Ultracargo, Brazil’s largest liquid bulk storage specialist, and in a statement the company said there had been no casualties and the surrounding area had been evacuated. The cause of the fire was not yet known on Thursday night.

A fire official said it would take “a while” to put the fire out completely, explaining that firemen had been wetting down nearby tanks to prevent it spreading.

The fire started around 10am Sao Paulo time.

Ultracargo’s Santos facility stores up to 301,300 cubic metres of fuels, chemicals, vegetable oils, ethanol and corrosive products. The particular fuels involved in this case were not known on Thursday night.

As a precaution the port of Santos, which is Latin America’s biggest, said it had moved five ships docked at a nearby terminal.

 

 

Donal Scully

With 28 years experience writing and editing for newspapers in the UK and Hong Kong, Donal is now based in California from where he covers the Americas for Splash as well as ensuring the site is loaded through the Western Hemisphere timezone.
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