1 year ago
48
VILNIUS, Jan 13 (Reuters) - A state pipeline connecting Lithuania and Latvia was deed by an detonation connected Friday but determination was nary contiguous grounds of an attack, Lithuania state transmission relation Amber Grid said.
Video published by Lithuania's nationalist broadcaster LRT showed a occurrence raging astatine the blast tract successful the Panevezys region successful bluish Lithuania. The occurrence was enactment out, the Lithuania pipeline grid operator's main enforcement said.
"According to the archetypal assessment, we bash not spot immoderate malign cause, but the probe volition screen each imaginable options," Amber Grid Chief Executive Nemunas Biknius told a quality conference.
The proviso of state was chopped disconnected but the CEO said the blast had damaged 1 of 2 parallel pipelines sending state from Lithuania to Latvia and that Amber planned to reconstruct proviso by utilizing the unaffected one.
"We program to reconstruct the state proviso successful a fewer hours, successful comparable amounts. We program that the clients volition not consciousness an interaction from this event", Biknius told reporters.
Lithuania, similar war-torn Ukraine, borders Russia and is situated connected the Baltic Sea wherever the Russia-to-Germany Nord Stream state pipelines were destroyed by explosions past year.
Flames initially roseate immoderate 50 metres (160 feet) successful the aerial and could beryllium seen astatine a region of astatine slightest 17 km (11 miles), LRT reported.
There were nary injuries oregon fatalities reported, Baltic quality bureau BNS said.
Povilas Balciunas, the caput of nationalist medication successful the adjacent municipality of Pasvalys, told Reuters flames initially burned similar "a large torch of gas" earlier calming down.
Reporting by Andrius Sytas, penning by Terje Solsvik; Editing by Kirsten Donovan, David Evans and Grant McCool
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
English (US)