A fire at a sulfur producing company in Constantí (Tarragona) has prompted Civil Defense to activate the emergency phase of the Plaseqta Chemical Accident Safety Plan and to call for the confinement of workers in the area and neighbors who are close to the city’s industrial zone. Three people became drunk: one was taken to the Joan XXIII Hospital in Tarragona and another was discharged at the scene, reports the Medical Emergency System (SEM).
According to the civil defense, the fire broke out around 2:15 p.m. in one of the ships owned by AFEPASA in Constantí, on which pallets of sulfur were stored. Following the fire, which mobilized at least eighteen teams from the Generalitat fire brigade, the civil defense activated the Plaseqta emergency phase – the highest of the three phases envisaged in the plan – and triggered the two alarm sirens of the Constantí polygon area. The firefighters have divided a second store into sectors and in the third, containing pallets of sulfur, they separate those that are burning from those that are not.
Areas affected by containment due to the Polígono de Constantí fire (Tarragona). Civil Defense (CIVIL DEFENSE)
As a result, local residents, of whom there are few as it is an industrial area, have been asked to listen to the sirens and confine themselves to their homes or the enclosed space within reach given the risk of toxicity posed by the smoke released.
For its part, the Afepasa company reported that an electrical fire caused a deflagration and that “part of the visible black smoke was a result of the ash cooling by the action of the firefighters”. The company claims the sulfur dissolved into the atmosphere “without any danger” to neighboring ships or “affecting the health of anyone nearby”.
The event comes just a week after an exercise that put 65,000 people on alert in Tarragona and nearby communities such as Vila-seca, la Canonja, Salou and Reus. It was the largest chemical spill exercise ever held in Catalonia and a cellphone alert system was launched for people in the danger zone. Due to the proximity between the two dates, the civil defense emphasized this Monday that the alarm sirens did not sound because of any exercise, but that it was a real accident.
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