TAIF, 24 May 2004 — Three maintenance workers died on Saturday when an underground fuel tank exploded at a gas station near Al-Hada.
For two hours Civil Defense teams battled the blaze, apparently the result of built-up gases in the tank igniting when the workers attempted to clean it, according to Okaz Arabic daily.
The teams found one worker burned and skinned and two others prone on the ground. Two firemen suffered smoke inhalation attempting to pull the bodies free of the blaze, the paper added.
A witness said the explosion shook the ground at his nearby gas station.
“We all ran in the direction of the noise and were horrified to see that the workers were no longer on top of the tank,” Mohammad Hussein said. “We knew then that something terrible had happened to them.”
Abdul Rahman Al-Juaid, who works a nearby office, saw a fourth maintenance worker running toward the tank while his co-workers were using a vacuum cleaner to clear the built-up gases. “It’s obvious that there were complications,” he said.
The fourth worker had stayed away from the tank due to respiratory problems.
“My co-workers said that was fine and went ahead with the job,” he said. “We all took a break at 3 p.m., prayed, had lunch and then they went back to work, only to leave as burned corpses.”
“When the tank blew up we tried to hand down a rope but it was too late,” he added.
