All three victims suffered burns from the Monday, October 12 blast, with two ultimately succumbing to their wounds. The third employee remains in the hospital, sedated and on a ventilator, Soroka Medical Center said in a statement.
Upon the arrival of the emergency responders, they determined the neck of a gas cylinder had exploded while workers offloaded it from a truck. The incident resulted in the deaths of two workers: Ilya Chechulin (49) and Yakir Kosashvili (35), and left a third worker injured.
Intel’s factory in Kiryat Gat, FAB28, is a facility that launched nearly twenty years ago. The factory is one of the most advanced in Intel’s global network and is responsible for producing 10-nanometer chips, a flagship product found in laptops and servers.
Financial Impact
As a result of the explosion and fire, CFO David Zinsner said in a report in the Globes, the shutdown of the factory will have “about a $300 million impact to the fourth quarter.”
Intel shares plunged by nearly 30 percent. The drop is driven not only by the incident in Kiryat Gat but also by a pessimistic outlook for PC sales, which led to a downward revision of the company’s fourth-quarter guidance.
During an investor call, Zinsner said Kiryat Gat facility had been closed for two weeks. He said he expected production to resume this week, though he stopped short of guaranteeing it, according to the report.
Fire following explosion at Intel Kiryat Gat factory in Israel that killed two workers and injured another.
Source: Israel Fire and Rescue Service
“We feel like we are going to be starting up production here by the end of this week. While we are doing that, we are trying to assess all the wafers that are in the line and what is usable and what is not usable from those materials,” he said in the report.
Zinsner did not rule out the possibility the financial impact of the plant’s shutdown could extend into the coming year.
“I think the current thinking is that we will have about a $300 million impact to the fourth quarter.” Intel also expects the shutdown will result in a 2-percentage-point decline in the gross margin forecast for the fourth quarter.
According to Zinsner, the reduction in inventory levels will primarily impact the fourth and first quarters, with a potential, albeit minor, effect on the second quarter as well.