Gas Explosion at Mirpur House: Unauthorised repair, faulty line to blame

The death toll from Wednesday's gas explosion at a building in the capital's Mirpur has risen to four as three more people died from burns yesterday.

Officials said cooking gas got trapped in a flat when a local man was trying to unclog a faulty gas pipe on the ground floor of the building. The tragedy struck when the man lit a stove to check if the pipe was clear, causing the trapped gas to catch fire.

Three of those who died are from a family. Three others injured in the fire are struggling for life with burns in their respiratory tracts, doctors said.

The building owner's mother Rawshan Ara Begum, 70, his step-brother Shafiqul Islam, 35, and Sazzad Hossain Suman, 40, the man who was trying to unclog the gas pipe, died at Sheikh Hasina National Institute of Burn and Plastic Surgery yesterday, according to Samanta Lal Sen, coordinator of the burn institute.

Eighty-five percent of the bodies of Rawshan and Shafiqul were burnt while Suman suffered 45 percent burns.

Shafiqul's mother Rina Begum, 50, died at the institute on Thursday morning with 70 percent burns.

Tenant of the building Renu Begum, 35, with 38 percent burns; tenant of an adjacent building Naznin Akhter, 25, with 27 percent burns; and her daughter Nawshin, 5, with 15 percent burns, are being treated at the High Dependency Unit of the facility.

The fire originated around 11:30pm on the ground floor of the six-storey building in Mirpur-11.

Owner of the building Rafiqul Islam said there was a problem in the gas line of the building and he called Suman to fix it.

"After repairing the line, he tried to check the connection and lit a stove. There was an explosion… Later, the fire spread," he said.

A team of Bomb Disposal Unit of the Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) unit visited the scene.

Rahmat Ullah Chowdhury, chief of the unit, said that gas trapped in the kitchen on the ground floor caught fire when the stove was lit.

Sumon's daughter Suraiya said, "Whenever it rains, water enters into the gas pipe. The house owner called my father to clear the pipe."

Naznin's husband, who went out of home to buy ice-cream for his daughter, was not injured in the fire.

Rafiqul's father Mahbubur Rahman said he called Titas officials at least 20 times to report the problem. "But they didn't come. We were forced to call the local technician."

Zakir Hossain, a customer service provider at Titas Gas Emergency for Mirpur Zone, refuted the allegation, saying no complaint was submitted.

Leaky gas pipes were the fourth most common cause of fires reported last year, according to Fire Service and Civil Defence data.

In late June, an explosion that claimed 11 lives in the capital's Moghbazar, resulted from accumulated methane gas from a leaky pipe, says a probe report of the fire service.

According to the fire service, at least 722 fires at gas lines were reported last year. Firefighters had to work at 485 of those sites.