You never know when lightning will hit and where it will hit during a storm. This could be chalked down to just bad luck as an oil refinery in Indonesia caught on fire during heavy rain. Usually building like these are grounded to be safe from lightning so the cause is not clear.
The refinery was on the island of Java. It caught on fire early Monday, with the fire spreading so much that everything was eventually a big ball of fire and smoke. According to reports, the fire injured a total of six people while over one thousand residents nearby were evacuated.
The fire started at midnight and burned all through the night and day. The authorities had no way of estimating when the fire could be completely put out. The company owning the refinery said in a statement that “The cause of the fire is not known with certainty, but at the time of the incident, it was raining heavily accompanied by lightning”.
A spokesman, Ifki Sukarya, revealed that the fire started when three gasoline storage tanks caught on fire. The firefighters struggled to keep the fire at bay and it eventually spread to the fourth tank. The company officials have assured that the refinery will be operational with four to five days, reporting that the fire damage was mainly confined to the storage tanks and not the operational facilities of the refinery.
You can take a look at the fire from the video below. This could have gone a whole lot worse.
