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MOSCOW:

Three people were killed and around 150 others were injured after a fire broke out on Tuesday at a gas chemical complex under construction in Russia’s Far East, the plant’s press service said.

The dead included two Chinese nationals and one Russian, while 24 of the injured people were admitted to hospital.

The complex, which bills itself as one of the world’s largest polyethylene and polypropylene producers, is a joint project of Russian company Sibur and Chinese oil and gas company Sinopec.

It has yet to start production. Russia frequently relies on foreign labour, including workers from China, for the construction of large industrial and Infrastructure projects.

The facility said work was continuing at the site to extinguish the blaze and specialists were carrying out a controlled burn of the remaining industrial gases.

Russia’s Investigative Committee said it was investigating the incident as a potential breach of industrial safety regulations and was working to establish the cause of the fire.