Woman injured in apartment gas explosion

[SpaceTruckin]

Woman injured in apartment gas explosion

Mother and two sons escape after blast blows doors off and shatters windows

PUBLISHED : Monday, 26 May, 2014, 5:03pm
UPDATED : Monday, 26 May, 2014, 5:03pm

Clifford Lo [email protected]

A woman was being treated at Tuen Mun Hospital after a gas explosion at her apartment early today. Photo: Felix Wong

A 54-year-old woman escaped serious injuries in an explosion sparked by a gas leak at her apartment in Tuen Mun early today.

Wong Mei-yi, 54, a taxi driver, suffered minor burns to her face and hands in the blast and is in stable condition in Tuen Mun Hospital.

Police say the incident happened shortly after 4.45am when she went to prepare breakfast in the kitchen of her ground-floor flat in a three-storey block in Horizon Villa on Fuk Hang Tsuen Road.

She smelled an odour but did not realise it was a gas leak, according to a fire officer.

“The explosion occurred when she started to switch on a gas stove,” the officer said. “Domestic items in the kitchen and living room caught fire and her two sons used buckets of water to douse flames before firemen arrived.

“The force of the explosion blew off doors and shattered windows,” he said.

The woman’s two sons aged 34 and 35, who were in their bedrooms at the time of the blast, were unhurt, according to police.

“The whole building shook. My bedroom door was blown off and flew into my room,” her eldest son, Ho Lok-ho, said.

The family had left their flat before emergency crews arrived.

Firefighters wearing breathing apparatus removed the stove and a gas cylinder from the flat. A fire department spokesman said officers from the Electrical and Mechanical Services Department were investigating the cause of the gas leak.