Romania evacuates border area after Russian drone strike sets gas tanker ablaze on Danube – Firstpost

Romanian authorities evacuated the village of Plauru near the border with Ukraine after a Russian drone attacked a tanker carrying gas on the Danube River and set it on fire.

The tanker was located a few hundred meters from the village, posing an imminent danger.

“It could explode at any time,” politico Romanian news site Digi24 quoted Tudor Cernega, mayor of the Cittalchioi commune, which includes Plauru.

“We did door-to-door checks, we even took out the animals,” the mayor said. “We stopped the traffic, the danger is too great.”

Romania’s emergency situations department said on social media that the fire broke out after “a drone strike carried out on the territory of Ukraine” on Sunday night, causing a “ship loaded with LPG to burst into flames in the area of ​​Izmail”, a Ukrainian port city in the southwest near the Romanian border.

The department said it had ordered the evacuation of the entire Sittalchioi commune, where about 250 residents live, and sent vehicles and ambulances to assist.

The tanker, Turkish-flagged Orinda, can carry about 1.8 million gallons of liquefied petroleum gas. The crew was evacuated safely after the fire, with video showing a large plume of smoke and flames rising from the ship.

Moscow has repeatedly targeted Ukrainian port facilities along the Danube during its full-scale invasion, and drone parts have been found on Romanian territory on several occasions, highlighting the risks of the conflict spilling over.

with inputs from agencies