Fire at Japanese steel plant

A large fire has broken out at a steel plant near Haneda airport south of the Japanese capital, Tokyo, the BBC reports.

Japanese officials say that so far there have been no reports of injuries and a fire official told AFP news agency that the blaze started at a two-metre-tall (6.7ft) cooling tower at a factory owned by a unit of Nippon Steel.

The steel plant is situated in the city of Kawasaki, which is next to the Haneda airport, some 25km from central Tokyo.

Passengers at the airport uploaded pictures of the fire on social media showing large plumes of black.

The fire spread to a factory next door operated by consumer goods company Kao, and 600 employees were evacuated, Japan's public broadcaster NHK reported. It added that there was no immediate impact on the airport.

This was the second large fire to break out in Japan on Monday, following a blast at a US military base in Sagamihara which has been extinguished. The US Army said that the warehouse stored compressed gases including nitrogen, oxygen and Freon and that authorities are still investigating the cause of the blast.