One Killed, Nine Injured In Bosnian Oil-Refinery Blast

An explosion hits the oil refinery in Brod, Northern Bosnia.

A powerful explosion has hit a Russian-owned oil refinery in northern Bosnia-Herzegovina, killing one worker and injuring nine, police say.

Previous reports said eight people were injured in the October 9 explosion at the oil-processing plant in Bosanski Brod, near the Croatian border.

The blast hit the facility at around 9:30 p.m. local time, triggering a huge fire that was extinguished by firefighters early on October 10.

Authorities said the cause of the blast was still being investigated.

Several houses located around the refinery had their windows broken due to the explosion, which was heard on the other side of the border, across the Sava River in Croatia.

Local media reported that black smoke and an odor were moving downriver toward Croatia.

The Brod refinery is majority-owned by a unit of Zarubezhneft, a state-owned Russian oil company. It can process up to 1.2 million tons of crude oil per year.

With reporting by AP and Reuters