“Third Day of Fire at British Shell Refinery near Houston, Texas”

Firefighters in the town of Deer Park, near Houston, Texas, have been putting out a fire at a British Shell refinery for the third day, starting to direct wastewater from the extinguishing into a shipping channel, the company said.

“As a result of the large amount of water required to control the fire, the capacity of the sewage storage facility has been exceeded and the sewage is now being diverted to the Houston shipping channel as part of a controlled discharge,” Shell said in a Twitter statement.

They also noted that the company conducts air quality monitoring, which so far “has not revealed any dangerous levels of chemicals”, but the local population can observe “black smoke” from the refinery.

Formerly spokesman for the industry giant Curtis Smith told RIA Novosti that Shell will investigate the causes of the fire that broke out on Friday afternoon at an oil refinery near Houston. According to him, the fire started on Friday afternoon at an enterprise in the town of Deer Park. A Shell spokesman said there were no reports of casualties, but a small number of contract workers were sent for medical examination “for reasons of precaution”.

Meanwhile, the ABC branch, citing local authorities, informed that at least five people were hospitalized as a result of a fire at a Shell plant. The mayor of Deer Park told the television station that a carbon leak was the root cause of the fire.