Six people killed as gas tanker explodes following an accident

Six people have died, including three firefighters, after a truck carrying 60 tons of natural gas crashed and exploded in the capital of Mongolia.

Many firefighters went to put out a fire after a car crash in Ulaanbaatar on Wednesday morning.

At least 11 people got hurt, and the fire spread to buildings close by.

One person who lives in the area thought that a plane had crashed at first.

Erdenebold Sukhbaatar, who is a 40-year-old lawyer, told Reuters news agency that the crash happened at around 01:00 local time (17:00 GMT on Tuesday). He said it felt like an earthquake and there was a bright light afterward.

It was really powerful. And I’ve never seen such a powerful explosion before. It was about 60,000 liters of gas. It was like a big, watery gas.

He saw the fire quickly spread to “almost three different buildings”.

A person living in the building said that when they noticed the fire, the front door was already on fire, so they had to escape through the back door. When they turned around, they saw that the fire had gone up to the highest floor of the building.

“They said it happened very fast. ”

Another person said that the explosion was so strong that it broke their windows and ruined their balcony.

Sainbuyan Amarsaikhan, who is the deputy leader of Mongolia, said that no one had been hurt in any of the buildings.

But he said the firefighters died in another explosion, which threw part of the truck very strongly, causing the sad loss of life.

The Mongolian National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) said the fire was extinguished by 04:30. They also said that four children were hurt, including one who was being treated for poisoning.

People are wondering why it was okay for a tank carrying dangerous stuff to go into a neighborhood with lots of schools.

Erdenebold Sukhbaatar said that it would be worse if it happened during the busy times in the morning or evening.

“This proves that the city planning is very poor,” said Ankhbayar Galbadrakh to AFP news agency. “All these trucks, with or without gas, must travel outside the city. “