Yahia Hatim By Yahia Hatim – moroccoworldnews.com
The factory provided jobs for approximately 400 workers.
Civil protection services in Tangier, northern Morocco, have struggled to contain a fire in the early morning hours of Monday, January 25.
The fire broke out at a textile manufacturing unit in the Mghogha industrial zone, in the eastern outskirts of Tangier.
“There was a terrible explosion, and then fire, a lot of fire,” one eye-witness told Moroccan news outlet Le360.
Other witnesses also reported hearing an explosion right before the fire broke out.
According to a local report, the incident has injured one person and caused material losses estimated in the millions of dirhams. The fire damaged approximately 70% of the factory’s total area — around 2,120 square meters.
Civil protections services put out the fire after several hours and transferred the injured person — the factory’s security guard — to the hospital for asphyxiation.
Photos from the Mghogha industrial zone show several firemen actively trying to put out the fire. Civil protection services arrived at the scene before sunrise.
One photo shows about 30 burnt gas cylinders that turned black because of the heat. Other pictures show the material damage that the fire has caused in the industrial unit, with several boxes burnt to ashes.
The textile factory, which belongs to a Moroccan entrepreneur, employs approximately 400 workers. The fire caused an electricity cut-off in the entire industrial zone of Mghogha, affecting the productivity of other factories as well.
Police have opened a judicial investigation to determine the causes of the fire. Preliminary elements revealed that several gas cylinders have exploded inside the factory, but it is yet unclear how the incident occurred.
