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Kaohsiung gas explosion kills 26, injures more than 260
Investigators look at five companies owning gas or propene pipelines
Taiwan News, Staff Writer
2014-08-01 02:41 PM
Central News Agency
TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – A series of midnight gas line explosions under downtown Kaohsiung streets killed at least 26 people and left more than 260 injured early Friday.
Long stretches of streets caved in while cars and rubble were strewn around in a series of explosions which began at around 11:59 p.m. Thursday in the city’s Chienchen and Lingya districts. Several fire trucks were thrown sideways into the holes, while at least four firefighters were among the dead. Cable stations compared the scene to a war zone after heavy bombing. The collapsed roads looked like 5-meter-wide trenches or canyons, with destruction apparent over a length of 6 kilometer, reports said.
Rescue workers spent hours trying to douse the flames and looking for missing persons under the rubble. Schools and offices in the area were ordered closed for the day, with several streets in the area cordoned off.
By Friday noon, the official toll had risen to 25 dead and 267 injured. Late in the afternoon, one person succumbed to his injuries at the local Veterans General Hospital, bringing the death toll up to 26.
Dozens of the injured were in a critical condition, hospitals said, while two senior fire fighters were reported missing. During the afternoon, signs of life were found under one of the roads, leading rescue workers to believe they had located at least one missing fireman, reports said. The Ministry of Education said the dead included one high-school girl, while 16 students were among the injured.
Because of the presence of a number of industrial pipelines in the area, suspicions arose that a propene line owned by the LCY Group might have been behind the disaster, but the company denied the allegations. At 4 a.m. its representatives and city inspectors checked the propene lines, which proved to be still intact, the company said. In addition, the highly flammable propene did not have a smell, which went counter to reports by residents that they had smelled gas before the explosions, LCY said. The company also claimed that the diameter of the ruptured line was different from its own.
Other major petrochemical companies, such as CPC Corporation, Taiwan and the Formosa Plastics Group also denied responsibility for the explosions. There were unconfirmed reports that irregularly low pressure had been noticed in a pipeline leading to an industrial zone before 9 p.m. Thursday, but CPC and the other companies denied knowing anything about such a problem. Members of the public also spoke of a strong smell of gas in the area around 8 p.m. Thursday.
The environmental services said that by noon, there were no signs of any more chemical or toxic substances leaking into the air in the area.
Prosecutors had reportedly found the maps with the location of five pipelines, two carrying propene and three gas, and were visiting five companies to find data about the recent situation of the pipelines, reports said. Information about road works over the past three days was also being looked at in case there was a connection with gas leaks.
Several video recordings of the calamity emerged during the day, showing columns of fire rising from intersections as filmed from approaching cars. As drivers turned away to find an alternative route, more fire spouted out of the ground in front of them.
Motorcycles, rocks and even cars were catapulted on to rooftops, reports said. Glass windows up to the third floor of buildings were completely blown out.
All through the day, military crews wearing face masks worked through the rubble to try and find survivors or bodies. A total of 2,400 firefighters, police and military had been mobilized in several regions, the government said. The authorities called for volunteers with knowledge of water and electricity to repair utility services to the stricken area.
Supermarkets donated water and bread and a hotel offered free temporary accommodation to residents rendered homeless by the disaster.
The city government turned ten schools into shelters for 1,200 displaced area residents. A shortage of cell phones and battery chargers was soon ended thanks to the generosity of the public, reports said.
One exit of the Sun Yat-sen Freeway was closed, but train and mass rapid transit traffic in the Kaohsiung area were not affected. At one time, more than 20,000 households lost electricity, but the number was cut to 7,500 by early afternoon, reports said. A total of 23,600 households were without gas as a result of the calamity.
Messages of support and pledges of financial aid streamed in during the day, while top politicians from Mayor Chen Chu to China’s President Xi Jinping offered their condolences. Special activities across the country, including a fireworks festival along the river in Taipei, were canceled in a sign of solidarity with the victims. President Ma Ying-jeou maintained one minute of silence before a meeting with indigenous leaders.
Premier Jiang Yi-huah visited the Kaohsiung City emergency center and the site of the disaster in Chen’s company during the afternoon. He ordered flags on official buildings around the country flown at half-mast August 5-7. Some of the injured at a local hospital also received his visit.
Top corporations and business leaders donated a total of up to NT$269 million (US$8.9 million) to fund the rescue work and supplies for the victims, reports said. The Legislative Yuan gave NT$2.5 million (US$83,000) and top entertainers also joined in. The Kaohsiung City Government’s Social Affairs Bureau opened a special account for donations.
The disaster in Kaohsiung led to increased nervousness about problems with gas lines elsewhere. Cable stations reported tough safety measures surrounding an apparent gas leak on Taipei’s Songjiang Road during the afternoon. New Taipei City, Keelung and Chiayi City ordered reviews of the safety situation within their territories.
Experts said that in the case of gas explosions, parks and schools would be the safest locations to seek refuge because they usually did not have gas pipelines buried underneath. Gas lines were mostly to be found under major traffic arteries and less likely under narrow streets and alleys, the experts said.
Politicians and parties said they would call a temporary halt to the campaign for the November 29 regional and local elections.
The Kaohsiung gas explosions came shortly after 48 people died in the crash of a TransAsia Airways on its way from the southern port city to Makung in Penghu County on July 23.
Relatives grieve as the rescue operation continues. Photo: Reuters
Angry residents of Kaohsiung accused the Taiwanese authorities of acting too slowly to prevent a series of gas explosions that killed and injured more than 300.
Some relatives of victims accused officials of reacting slowly to complaints about gas leaks that were reported more than three hours before the first blast.
At least 26 people died and 280 were injured in the southern port city on Thursday. Two were still missing last night. Thousands were left without power and water, vehicles were blown away and buildings ripped apart.
It was Taiwan's second disaster in as many weeks following the crash of a TransAsia Airways plane on the island of Penghu on July 23 that killed 48 people.
Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou observed a minute's silence yesterday and vowed to get to the bottom of the disaster.
The Taipei-based United Daily News called it the deadliest gas explosion in Taiwan's history.
Investigators believe the explosions were probably caused by a leak of propene, a gas used to make plastics and fabrics, from an underground pipe. But it was unclear what caused the leak or triggered the blast.
Chen Chin-der, head of the city's environment protection bureau, confirmed last night that LCY Chemical Group's propene supply pipe was the likely source of the leak.
LCY earlier admitted finding abnormal pressure in the pipe but said transmission was suspended before the blast. It denied any part in the explosions. It said its pipes, about 10 metres away from the explosion sites, were intact when examined yesterday.
Rescue operations were continuing last night, more than 20 hours after the blasts turned a 2 sq km area into what looked like a war zone, with trenches up to five metres wide and three metres deep. The blasts cut gas supplies to 23,600 households and power to 8,473 households, the Taiwan Ministry of Economic Affairs said.
Witnesses described seeing cars hurled three storeys high. Many ran for their lives in the dark while the injured lay screaming for help.
Four of the 22 firefighters, including a squad leader, who were sent to put out fires were killed by subsequent explosions, Kaohsiung city government said.
An Apple Daily photographer suffered serious burns.
Firemen had been sent to streets where white smoke had been seen billowing from manholes from 8.40pm. The manhole covers had been blown out but the source of the leak could not be identified. Almost three hours later, shortly before midnight, the first explosion happened in busy Cianjhen district.
The blasts created huge trenches across an area of 2 sq km. Photo: AP
"Is there anyone who can tell me why no one can fix a gas leak problem in three hours?" one resident asked.
"What is going on when various parties pass the buck?"
Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu of the opposition Democratic Progressive Party, who visited the scene yesterday, criticised Ma's government for allowing "so many gas pipelines to be placed underground" in the district.
"In just 20 years, Kaohsiung has been hit by two serious gas explosions," she said, adding the pipelines "shouldn't be there in the first place".
Premier Dr Jiang Yi-huah ordered an investigation.
A gas explosion in the same district of Kaohsiung in September 1997 left 11 dead.
Both Taipei and New Taipei City governments cancelled firework displays yesterday and ordered checks of their pipelines.
President Xi Jinping sent his condolences.
Additional reporting by Andrea Chen, Bloomberg
An aerial view shows the extent of the damage. Photo: AP
Minutes after firefighter Wang Chung said goodbye to his wife and two daughters over the phone on Thursday night, he received reports of white foam erupting from drains with a strong smell of gas.
The 50-year-old had promised to take their daughters out on Saturday before heading to the intersection of Kaisyuan and Erhseng roads in the Cianjhen district of Kaohsiung, local media reported.
At around midnight five explosions ripped through the densely populated residential area, hurling concrete and cars through the air and blasting long trenches in the streets. Fires spread quickly sending heavy smoke into the night sky.
Wang was found pinned beneath an overturned fire truck. He died in hospital.
"As a wife of a fireman, I know I have to be prepared for something like this any time," his wife Chen Yu-chih said. But the moment she saw Chen's body covered in a piece of white cloth in the hospital, she said her heart was torn apart. "He was to retire next year," she told Eastern Television in tears.
Wang was one of the 26 people who died in the explosions. Three other firefighters were killed after rushing to the neighbourhood and attempting to bring the fires under control.
A firefighter surnamed Lin from the city's fire bureau had just arrived at the scene of the first explosion when the district was rocked by subsequent blasts. When his colleagues managed to get back on their feet, they could only find a helmet with his name on it lying among the rubble, TV reports said.
Grieving firefighters were seen screaming in tears after removing the bodies from the explosion site, Eastern Television reported.
"Where am I supposed to start rescuing? It was so tragic," one firefighter said.
Another firefighter told the Taiwan-based Liberty Times that his colleagues could barely contain their tears when they found the bodies of colleagues, but they had no choice but to help injured residents first.
A resident helps one of the injured.
At least 267 people were reported injured in the explosions, believed to have been caused by a leak of propene, a petrochemical material for industrial use.
Local media said petrochemical companies had for years been operating pipelines alongside the sewer system in the district, which is filled with old low-rise apartment buildings.
A resident surnamed Fu living two streets away from the explosion site told Union Daily News the incident reminded her of the earthquake in central Taiwan 1999, one of the most catastrophic natural disasters on the island, that killed more than 2,000.
She ran onto the top of her building and saw the neighbourhood nearby covered in black smoke, the paper reported.
"It was the most horrifying moment I have ever experienced," a resident surnamed Chang living in the neighbourhood was quoted by the Union Daily News as saying. The flames were several floors high, Chang and other residents said.
Kaohsiung in flames. Photo: AP
Videos uploaded by witnesses showed streets collapsed following the explosions, and cars falling into the gaping holes. People said the noise of the explosions and the screams of the residents turned the area into something from a war zone.
A scooter was spotted hurled onto the top of a three-floor building in a video taken by witnesses and aired by Eastern Television.
Residents joined the rescuers to search for victims in shattered shopfronts and pulled injured people from the rubble on the road after the flames died down.
"I was on my scooter just across the street, suddenly there was the explosion, a white car was blown toward me, and I saw the driver trapped in the car," said Wong Zhen-yao, an owner of a car repair shop.
The 49-year-old said he tried to pull the man out but failed.
"Only after the smoke was gone did I realise there was such a big hole in the middle of the road."
After the fire was brought under control yesterday morning, the city was engulfed in grief with families and friends of the victims identifying the bodies in a funeral parlour.
Bodies lined up.
"My sweetheart, my baby. Do you hear me? How could you leave me just like that?" cried the mother of fireman Huang Kuo-tung, a 46-year-old junior captain in the city's Lingya district, the United Daily News reported.
The devastated mother of a woman who died in the explosion, told Liberty Times her daughter was getting off work when the blast occurred. She told reporters in tears that her daughter's hand had been blown off, and her face was severely burnt.
A man, surnamed Wang, who lost his wife and teenage son recalled the tragic moment when the two were blown into the air.
Wang runs a noodle restaurant with his wife Chen Man-ching in downtown Kaohsiung. After they returned home from the restaurant on Thursday night, Chen suddenly remembered that she had forgotten to turn off the electricity in the restaurant. She dashed back with their son on her motorbike, promising to return soon.
Wang never saw them again. On their way to the restaurant, the explosion took their lives.
Rescue personnel survey the wreckage along a devastated stretch of street. Photo: Reuters
