Two 50-year-old female workers at the Ashdod oil refinery were pronounced dead on Wednesday morning as a result of oxygen deprivation.

The two women were wearing hazmat suits, and it is believed that their deaths may have been caused by a malfunction in the suits that exposed them to hazardous materials. The incident is still under investigation.

MDA emergency teams called to the site carried out prolonged resuscitation efforts on the women but were ultimately forced to pronounce their deaths.

Fire and rescue teams and police arrived at the scene and ruled out any suspicion of a hazardous materials leak outside the building and any danger to the public or to other employees at the plant.

Ariel Even-Danan, Ashdod district commander at the Fire and Rescue Service, said at the scene: “This is unequivocally not a hazardous materials incident. As I mentioned, there are two main possibilities—either a technical failure or a hazardous materials event.”

MDA paramedic Hila Bizawi and MDA medic Simcha Chasid recounted, “We received a report about two women who had lost consciousness at a factory near Ashdod. We arrived quickly and found two women in their 50s who were unconscious, without a pulse, and not breathing. We carried out prolonged resuscitation efforts, including chest compressions, ventilation, and medication, but in the end we had no choice but to pronounce their deaths at the scene.”

The Ashdod refinery, which covers about 1,000 dunams, employs 400 workers and produces 40% of the fuel and cooking gas consumed in Israel. According to a Ynet report, the last serious accident at the facility occurred in January 2013, when Mikhail Bliakhov, z’l, (35) and Moshe Tal, z’l, (38) were killed after inhaling hydrogen sulfide while repairing a pipe carrying hazardous material without protective equipment.

A preliminary examination found that they had also failed to close a valve on the pipe leading to the problematic area, and while repairing the pipe, hydrogen sulfide gas leaked and caused their immediate deaths.

Attorney Dafna Fischer, who represented the estate of Moshe Tal, said, “It is sad that tragic disasters involving loss of life, allegedly due to negligence and failures, are repeating themselves and occurring again at the same workplace. I hope that the investigation into today’s incident will not reveal the existence of an ongoing failure in the necessary and critically important process of implementing the lessons learned following Moshe’s death—who left behind an almanah and three young orphans—in order to prevent the recurrence of such tragic cases and the immense pain to additional families, as unfortunately happened again today.”

A statement from the Ashdod refinery said, “A short time ago, a safety incident occurred in the laboratory of the Ashdod refinery, for a reason that has not yet been clarified. As part of preparedness for emergency events, the refinery has a certified in-house first aid team that provided initial treatment to the victims until MDA teams arrived to continue treatment and evacuate the injured. A report about the incident was delivered to the police, the Fire and Rescue Service, the Ministry of Environmental Protection, and other relevant authorities. The company will investigate the incident and will continue to update on any further developments.”

(YWN Israel Desk—Jerusalem)