4 Chinese workers among 13 killed after a furnace blast at China-owned Indonesian nickel plant
- The blast on Sulawesi Island occurred during furnace maintenance on Sunday morning
- This was the third deadly accident this year at Chinese-owned nickel smelting plants in Central Sulawesi province, which has Indonesia’s largest nickel reserves
Thirteen workers were killed and 46 were injured on Sunday in the explosion of a nickel smelter furnace owned by Indonesia Tsingshan Stainless Steel (ITSS) on Sulawesi island, the owner of the industrial estate where the smelter is located said.
The blast occurred when workers repaired the furnace and installed plates at 5.30am on Sunday, killing nine Indonesian workers and four Chinese workers, Indonesia Morowali Industrial Park (IMIP) said in a statement. It had said earlier that an explosion killed eight Indonesian and five Chinese workers.
The fire was extinguished at 9.10am local time, it added.
It was the latest of a series of deadly accidents at nickel smelting plants in Indonesia that are part of China’s ambitious transnational development programme known as the Belt and Road Initiative.
“Based on initial investigations, the explosion [was] possibly caused because there was still some explosion-inducing liquid at the bottom of the furnace. During the repairing process, an explosion occurred,” an IMIP spokesperson said.
The first explosion triggered several other explosions because there were many oxygen cylinders used for welding and cutting furnace components for the repair, the spokesperson added.
