Three missing after blast on oil tanker in Russia's Makhachkala

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Three people were missing and two injured on Tuesday after a blast on an oil tanker caused a fire while it was pumping oil in the southern Russian port of Makhachkala, Russia's Transport Ministry said.

The port is functioning as normal despite the incident, the RIA news agency cited the Federal Agency for Maritime and River Transportation as saying.

The fire occurred on the VF-Tanker 16 vessel, which is owned by the Volga shipping agency, part of the UCL Holding transport group's shipping division.

Russian news agencies said the three missing people had been killed.

(Reporting by Gleb Stolyarov and Maxim Rodionov; writing by Tom Balmforth; editing by Andrew Heavens)