B'luru: 2 women suffer burns in blast caused by GAIL gas pipeline leak

Two women suffered burn injuries, with one of them ending up in a hospital, following an explosion in Bengaluru’s HSR Layout on Thursday, officials said.

Laika Anjum’s ground-floor house at 23rd Cross, 7th Sector, exploded in a fireball after she lit her LPG stove around 9 am to make tea.

The explosion was caused by gas leaking from an underground GAIL Gas pipeline ruptured by BWSSB work, police investigations show, leading to a now-familiar blame game between agencies.

The incident, which shows the dangers of poor coordination between utility agencies, prompted the HSR Layout police to book the BWSSB and GAIL Gas officials as well as the contractor.

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The GAIL pipeline runs through a manhole about 10 feet away from the house. The BWSSB was repairing the manhole after receiving complaints that it was blocked.

Anjum, 46, suffered 30 per cent burns to her face, hair and chest. She has been admitted to the burns ward at Victoria Hospital. Police said another woman suffered minor injuries while walking up to the second floor.

Anjum’s younger son Zuber was at home at the time of the explosion. Anjum lives with her husband Zameer Ahmed and two sons.

GAIL Gas and the BWSSB blamed each other for the mishap.

BWSSB Chief Engineer (South) S V Venkatesh accused GAIL Gas of laying the pipeline through a manhole.

“We were repairing the manhole after receiving complaints that it had been blocked. During the repair, the pipeline was probably damaged because it was laid through the manhole. Since the sanitary line of the affected house was directly connected to the manhole, gas moved into the house and caused the incident,” Venkatesh told DH.

“We have asked GAIL Gas to shift the pipeline out of the manhole. It didn’t follow the due procedure while laying the pipeline.”

GAIL Gas blamed the fire incident on “unauthorised third-party damage” to its pipeline network.

“The local contractor associated with the water and sewerage agency caused the damage without any prior intimation to/consent of GAIL Gas and didn’t even inform (sic) regarding the gas leakage and fled the site,” it said in a statement.

According to GAIL Gas, its Quick Response Team (QRT) and firefighting unit reached the site in less than five minutes and extinguished the fire.

GAIL Gas claimed that similar incidents had been reported against the contractor and said it had reported him to the authorities.

It asked the authorities to advise the contractors to inform it before carrying out any digging work near its pipelines.