Krevedia PSD Mayor Florin Petre was expelled from the party on Saturday, a week after the explosions at an LPG warehouse that left three dead and 56 injured, party sources told HotNews.ro.

The decision was made at the National Political Council of the SDP, which is held in the parliament.

However, the decision to expel Florin Petre from the PSD does not mean that he loses the position of mayor.

“What was our business?”

On Tuesday, the mayor of Crevedia made his first public appearance since the explosions that killed two people, visiting a local cultural center that accommodated families left homeless by the blasts after the county prefect arrived in Dambowitz, Claudia Gilia and the president of the county council, Corneliu Stefan.

When asked who, in his opinion, was to blame for this disaster, Petre Florin answered briefly: “The boss of the company.”

• “What kind of business did we have if we got a notice to stop this activity? We saw with our own eyes that the doors were closed and no one was driving. (…)

From my point of view, if ISU had informed the police to check from time to time whether this station is working, it would be fine,” he continued, claiming that he did not know how the company got the land and that “everything was fine until 2020”, when the company announced to the municipality that it was closing its business.

When it was pointed out that it was a small community, the mayor of Crevedia replied, “I wouldn’t say it’s a small community if we have at least 12,000 residents.”

He claimed he was unaware of the building permits granted to the firm during his time as mayor, adding that he did not know: “I wasn’t around at the time.”

When reporters drew his attention to the fact that he has been mayor since 2016, when he also had a criminal record, Petre Florin simply went: “Ah, now you’re giving away a criminal record.”

We will remind, on Saturday two devastating explosions thundered in Krevedia. As a result, two people died: a man who had a heart attack after seeing his wife on fire died shortly after, and a woman died on Sunday in hospital with burns to 95% of her body. Also, 56 people were injured, many of them firefighters.

“I am emotional and responded mechanically without thinking. The press pressured me”

On Wednesday, Florin Petre posted a video on the City Hall website, trying his best to convince us that he was unaware of the risks posed by the LPG company, that he had received no complaints (although citizens do) and that he was one of the first , who got to the place by calling 112 and helped get citizens out of the dangerous area.

Regarding the controversial statements, the mayor accused the “press on him” and emotionalism, claiming that some of his statements were misinterpreted.

“In 2020, ISU notified us about the withdrawal of the company’s permit. It closed the institution and surrounded it with a large opaque fence. How many times I passed by, saw different cars in the yard, but no economic activity. I did not receive any complaints from citizens, neither written, nor verbal, nor even on social networks… In the middle of the night, in those moments of general panic, several television stations called me, as well as the Digi 24 channel, not knowing that this was an interview. yu and that I am recorded. Under the excitement of the moment, I gave these answers mechanically, without passing them through the filter of thinking, and therefore the thought arose that I knew about the company’s activities,” said the mayor.

Reading out of the corner of his eye from the sheet/prompter, the mayor continued his tirade about the media taking advantage of his “physical and mental exhaustion” and preventing him from fulfilling his duty to the citizens of the city.

At the time of the explosions, the liquefied gas warehouse in Krevedia, which had been operating illegally and had been listed as closed since the fall of 2020, had three liquefied gas tanks, two of which were parked outside. During the pumping of gas from one tank to another in the yard of the enterprise, a fire broke out under one of the tanks, the Prosecutor General’s Office reports.

The devastating explosions in Krevedia revealed a whole series of violations – the gas station, which belonged to the PSD mayor’s son Caracal, was closed only for documentation purposes.

• FILM A film about the tragedy of Krevedia. At the time of the explosions, there were three tanks loaded with liquefied gas