CHARSADDA: Two oil tankers and five trucks reduced to ashes when fire broke out at a filling station in Charsadda few minutes before Iftar here on Thursday.

According to police and local people, diesel was being shifted from an oil tanker to another at Masood Jan filling station when all of a sudden fire broke out in one of the oil tankers. The fire engulfed the second oil tanker and five trucks that were parked there within minutes.

The filling station, owned by Masood Jan, is situated on main Charsadda-Peshawar Road.

Fire tenders from Charsadda and Tangi rushed to the site but the fire engulfed the whole area within minutes. The residents of Charsdda and Tangi and volunteers of Al-Khudmat Foundation tried their best to put off the fire. However, the fire was not extinguished till filing of this report.

Sky rising flames and clouds of smoke were bellowing from the filling station. The flames and smoke were seen from far areas of the district.

The owner of filling station said that the incident inflicted losses of over Rs20 million on him.

Published in Dawn, June 2nd, 2017