PETALING JAYA, April 30 — Police said today that adverse weather conditions have hampered ongoing excavation works at the ground zero of the Putra Heights gas pipe inferno, resulting in more time needed to facilitate on-site works.
Selangor police chief Commissioner Datuk Hussein Omar Khan said highlighted the persisting challenges faced by on-ground workers such as bad weather conditions which were observed in almost two-third of the clean-up operations (20 out of 28 days) which began on April 2.
“Once it rained, we would need to spend at least half a day pumping out the stagnant water in the (excavated) crater before we could resume work to extricate the affected pipe.
“So far we have removed the pipe in three parts, comprising two six-metre sections and one four-metre section,” he told reporters in a special media site visit here.
Hussein said 16 metres of the affected gas pipe have been removed so far, with a remaining four metres still being excavated.
He said the Department of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH) would still need at least a week for specimen retrieval and analysis of the remaining embedded pipe.
“We estimate a week for the final piece to be removed to complement DOSH’s investigation and their preparation of a report,” he said.
Explaining further, Hussein said most of the work done was to stabilise the soil perimeter of the dig site through steel piling by driving steel piles into the ground to form a barrier that provided support and reinforcement.
During Malay Mail’s visit, most of the affected residential units close to ground zero remained uninhabited and damaged; while those located further saw little activity, with sparse renovation works being performed.
On April 1, a gas pipeline rupture in Putra Heights, Subang Jaya caused an inferno exceeding 1,000 degrees Celsius to break out, scorching and severely damaging the surrounding residential areas for hours, where the pipe had traversed.
