The latest record high concentration of hydrogen sulfide in Slavonski Brod, registered on Tuesday morning, was caused by a fault at the oil refinery in Bosanski Brod, the Bosnian town opposite the eastern Croatian city on the left bank of the Sava river.
The refinery's spokesman, Rade Vidakovic, today confirmed that there were some faults at the plant, but he stopped short of defining exactly what kind of defects had occurred.
"We had a glitch with section 28 but it was repaired quickly by our teams. The situation is back to normal now, as seen at the measuring stations in Slavonski Brod," the spokesman said in an attempt to reassure Croatians across the Sava river that "there is no reason for great concern".
The concentration of hydrogen sulfide in the air in Salvonski Brod was 18 times above the limit in the morning, which was why city authorities warned citizens not to go out unless they had to.
At 8 a.m. concentration was 126.3 micrograms per square metre.
On Tuesday afternoon, the Environment and Nature Protection Ministry stated that there was no legislative basis to proclaim a state of emergency in that eastern Croatian town.
The ministry added that the refinery had been requested to urgently report its operations and if any extraordinary occurrences had taken place that may have caused the sudden higher concentration of hydrogen sulfide.
