AMMAN: Loads of port employees staged a strike in Jordan on Sunday because the top minister introduced the sacking of a number of officers accused of “negligence” over a dangerous fuel leak. A tank of chlorine fuel fell because it was once being loaded by way of crane onto a boat in Jordan’s Purple Sea port of Aqaba final Monday, liberating the poisonous substance. No less than 13 other people, together with 5 Vietnamese nationals, had been killed and greater than 260 others injured, in step with the most recent legitimate toll.
“The port employees are placing in protest over the vulnerable protection measures on the port which resulted in the demise and harm of a number of in their colleagues,” union consultant Ahmed Amayreh stated. About “95 p.c of the two,300” Aqaba port employees participated within the strike, he advised AFP. High Minister Bisher Al-Khasawneh stated Sunday that an investigation confirmed “nice deficiency and negligence in protection measures for coping with hazardous fabrics within the Aqaba port”.
The director and different officers from the state port operator in addition to the pinnacle of the maritime authority had been sacked, the premier stated all through a cupboard assembly. The fuel canister’s weight a ways exceeded the utmost load of the crane cable bearing it, stated Inner Minister Mazen al-Faraya, who headed the investigation.
“The container weighed about 28.9 heaps, which is over 3 times greater than the capability of the cable of 8.6 heaps, inflicting it to damage,” Faraya advised a information convention. A complete of “18 boxes of chlorine fuel had been meant to be loaded onto the send”, he stated. “Throughout the loading of the 5th, the cable broke and the container fell, resulting in the fuel leak,” he added. Faraya blamed the incident on “recklessness and negligence” at a number of ranges, pronouncing the port corporate had failed to turn management.
Union consultant Amayreh stated the placing port employees had been challenging officers make certain the implementation of right kind protection measures. Jordan’s public prosecutor had on Tuesday introduced an investigation into the incident, which led to the transient closure of Aqaba’s within sight seashores. Aqaba is Jordan’s simplest maritime gateway and a transit level for the lion’s proportion of its imports and exports. – AFP