Natural gas, erupting at a test drill near the Gaza Strip, was accidentally ignited last night, thrusting a 100-foot roaring column of fire into the sky.
Five workers, struggling to save a costly drilling machine, suffered burns of varying severity while Israeli fire-fighting equipment sought vainly to put out the fire which was visible to patrolling troops of the United Nations Emergency Force on the Gaza Strip border.
UNEF troops were seen watching the futile efforts to extinguish the volcanic tower of fire which experts said could burn for several days. Officials at the site said that if the blaze could not be snuffed out, army engineers would be ordered to blow up the well.
The test drill was undertaken in the Beeri area in a hunt for a geologic structure believed to be oil-bearing.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
