SINGAPORE - Windows blown off, fragments of door frames scattered on the pavement and shards of glass strewn on the road.
Hardly the kind of scene you would expect to find at Sentosa Cove.
The cause of Monday's mess was a gas blast at the main guardhouse at about 7am.
No one was hurt in the blast, said Sentosa Cove Resort Management (SCRM) general manager Catherine Chew.
But whether it happened inside or outside the guardhouse remained a mystery as investigators couldn't say for sure while trying to pinpoint the source of the gas leak.
When The New Paper arrived at the scene at 11am, police and SP PowerGrid personnel were on site investigating the blast.
Disarray
The blast was so powerful that a part of a steel door frame was seen embedded in a large concrete flower pot, 3m from the guardhouse.
Further down the road, a large piece of glass was found lodged between another concrete flower pot and its base.
The inside of the guardhouse was in disarray, with signboards, tables, and chairs in a heap.
A clock in the guardhouse, which had stopped, indicated 7am.
Police confirmed that the blast was caused by a gas leak.
According to an SP PowerGrid spokesman, preliminary investigations showed that there were traces of gas outside the guardhouse.
SP PowerGrid engineers were investigating the cause of the incident and checking gas pipelines in the vicinity for signs of leakage.
Ms Chew said the guardhouse was empty as it no longer serves as a security post and did not need to be manned permanently.
She said Sentosa Cove's gated residential area at the North and South Cove have separate security posts and processes in place to screen anyone entering the residential area at all times.
Six Sentosa Cove residents told TNP they did not hear a sound.
But one of them, Mrs Lizzy Clarke, whose apartment is a five-minute walk from the guardhouse, said that about three weeks ago, she had smelt gas in her apartment in the afternoon.
She said: "I was quite worried because the smell of gas was quite strong in my unit and I have a three-month-old baby, so I evacuated to my friend's place nearby." Mrs Clarke said she informed her apartment block's security personnel and she said they told her that a gas leak had occurred elsewhere on Sentosa.
SCRM could not confirm this incident.
Another resident, Miss Alice Martynez, 19, a student, told TNP that she was also unaware of the blast and that the only sound she had heard throughout the night was the deep rumble of thunder.
Miss Martynez lives at the W Residences, a seven-minute walk from the guardhouse.
TNP understands that SCRM had sent out an e-mail to residents, notifying them of Monday's incident.
Some of Singapore's most expensive residences are in Sentosa Cove.
A 16,000 sq ft house on Cove Drive was sold for $39 million to Indian mining mogul Shael Oswal earlier this year.
