Investigation starts for gas blast incident in Wales

An investigation has begun to determine the cause of the recent blast which resulted to gas supply shortage in houses of two Welsh villages. Fire fighters took 20 hours to control the fire at Merthyr Tydfil after Friday’s gas explosion. On the other hand, engineers worked the entire weekend to bring back the gas supply of 1,500 houses in Aberfan and Merthyr Vale.

Brent Carter, a local councillor, informed that earlier speculations suggest that several kids were hitting the gas main before the fire. Children were seen the night before the incident pulling, banging and damaging the pipelines. Wales and West Utilities (WWU), a gas distribution company, argued that it is still too early to speculate the possible cause of the fire.

WWU informs that there are currently less than 200 remote homes that have no gas and which engineers could not access. WWU fears that there will be shortage in gas supplies for weeks following the blast.

The supporting footbridge that carried the gas main unfortunately collapsed due to subsequent fire. Engineers however later found that the footbridge frame could still support a temporary connection to get affected homes back on supply.

With flames as high as 50ft, about 50 residential houses were evacuated during the incident. Residents were given a temporary shelter in the halls of St Peter and Paul Church.

WWU authorities said that they were alerted at 19:50 on Friday that a gas pipeline had ignited at Cardiff Road. The fire was put out on Saturday.