Novocherkassk Thermal Power Plant in Russia's Rostov Oblast is on fire, Russian state news agency TASS reported on June 14.
Local residents heard an explosion before the fire started at around 1:40 p.m. local time, according to the Novocherkassk Segodnya Telegram channel.
The epicenter of the fire was reported at the plant's sixth unit, later spreading to the fifth unit and covering at least 400 square meters.
Russian sources wrote that the fire started due to "non-compliance with safety precautions during repair work," causing an explosion.
Three people were injured with burns and 150 people were evacuated, TASS wrote.
At around 3 p.m. local time, the Russian media said the fire has been contained.
Anastasiia Lapatina
According to Novocherkassk Segodnya, reports about an air attack against the plant began to circulate on social media but have not been confirmed.
The Kyiv Independent could not verify these claims.
The city of Novocherkassk lies roughly 70 km from the temporarily occupied Ukrainian border and 45 km from the Russian regional center Rostov-on-Don.
Since the start of Russia's all-out war against Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, there have been multiple reports about fires breaking out across Russia and other incidents which some believe to be carried out by the Ukrainian military or local partisan groups.
On June 13, fires have been reported in an oil depot in Krasnodar and in a production facility in Saint Petersburg.
On June 9, a fuel and lubricant warehouse caught on fire in the city of Ufa in Russia's Bashkortostan Republic, located 550 km north of Kazakhstan's border.
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(Updated: )
