The huge US toxic fire shrouded in secrecy: ‘I taste oil in my mouth’

Louisianans say a major accident at a sprawling Marathon refinery caused health issues. The company insists there were no offsite impacts'

At 8.04am on 25 August last year, Darnell Alboudoor watched a plume of black smoke blanketing the sky and rolling in the direction of her family home.

A stench like burning oil filled the air on that piping hot summer morning, as Alboudoor, 54, looked in the direction of the sprawling petroleum refinery, which sat a few hundred feet from her back yard. She called 911.