Angry crowd forces fuel station to close down

HCM CITY (VNS)— Police in HCM City's Binh Thanh District yesterday shut down a petrol station for allegedly selling adulterated fuel which affected more than 100 motorbikes that filled there on Wednesday night.

News website VietNamNet says samples have been sent from Lan Anh petrol station on National Highway 13 to a national laboratory for testing.

Police officers had to step in to stop an altercation between petrol station employees and around 100 customers who had surrounded the place demanding compensation.

After filling their motorbikes, some discovered that they could not start the vehicles.

They discovered gradually that many others had the same problem after filling fuel at the station. They accused it of adulterating fuel with some other liquid, while the employees blamed it on the heavy rain on Wednesday afternoon.

The police came soon after.

Many of the customers emptied their fuel tanks and filled them with other petrol, and managed to start the engines without a problem.

But some motorbikes using automatic fuel injection systems instead of carburetors could not start even after replacing the petrol.

Early this year many motorbikes in Viet Nam suddenly went up in flames. The public blame it on adulterated petrol, but official agencies and scientists have yet to announce the exact cause. —VNS