BRUSSELS (Alliance News) - A 24-year-old man was killed Tuesday after an oil furnace exploded at a site owned by the UK pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline PLC in Belgium, local media reported.
The production technician was seriously injured by the explosion and later died in hospital.
Three other workers were treated for shock in an infirmary at the GlaxoSmithKline site, according to the Belga news agency. The vaccine research and development facility is located in Rixensart, about 20 kilometres south of Brussels.
Several furnaces located outside production buildings on the property were undergoing maintenance at the time of the blast, Belga quoted a company spokesman as saying. The explosion propelled a lot of debris, injuring the nearby technician, Belga said.
The explosion caused some damage, but there was no impact on the environment or production at the site, Belga and the broadcaster RTBF reported.
The company spokesman told Belga that GlaxoSmithKline will fully cooperate with the investigation into the incident to ensure that "such a tragedy cannot happen again."
Copyright dpa