Daijiworld Media Network - Sulaimaniyah

Sulaimaniyah, Aug 18: A massive fire broke out at a fuel storage depot near Sulaimaniyah in Iraq's northern Kurdish region, injuring around 20 people and destroying dozens of fuel tankers, local officials and media reports said.

The fire erupted shortly before midnight on Monday at a warehouse in the Tanjaro area, one of the province's main fuel supply centres. Emergency crews and security forces rushed to the site as the blaze intensified, with several explosions reported as flames spread through the facility.

Footage of the fire, verified by Al Jazeera, showed flames and thick clouds of smoke rising over the northern Iraqi city.

Hersh Saeed Saleem, deputy director general of Sulaimaniyah, told the Rudaw Media Network that there were no fatalities in the incident. He said around 20 people were injured, with all the injuries described as minor.

Shafaq News separately reported two cases of burns, with one of the injured requiring hospital treatment.

According to Shafaq News, citing a local source, 34 petrol tankers and four gas-oil tankers were destroyed in the fire. More than three million litres of fuel were reportedly consumed by the blaze.

Deputy Governor of Sulaimaniyah Shaho Osman said the fire had been brought under control.

The cause of the fire remains unknown, and authorities have not yet released a complete assessment of the damage caused to the facility.

Civil defence teams from Sulaimaniyah led the firefighting operation, while their counterparts in Erbil remained on standby to provide assistance if required.

Despite the scale of the blaze and the loss of fuel stocks, Ramyar Rizgar, spokesperson for the Sulaimaniyah fuel market, and Sheikh Abdullah, owner of the warehouse, told Rudaw that they did not expect the incident to cause an increase in petrol prices in the region.