Gas leakage incidents in Patna raise safety concern

PATNA: The high-intensity explosion probably due to leakage from LPG cylinder at a house in Salimpur Ahra near Gandhi Maidan here on Monday morning has once again raised concern about safe handling of gas cylinders and precautions needed to be taken by the residents while using LPG in their homes.
According to police officials, there was no ventilation in the room where the cylinder was kept and gas leaked. Traffic SP D Amarkesh, who is incharge city SP (central), told this newspaper that the LPG leaked from the broken hosepipe and spread in the house. “There was no ventilation in the kitchen and all windows were closed. When a woman lit a matchstick, fire broke out,” he said.
Officials of Bihar Fire Services claimed that such incidents are quite common in state, but most of the fire incidents take place in rural areas during winter season.
RK Mishra, DG of Bihar Fire Services, told this newspaper that it was the second fire incident due to gas leakage in Patna in the last five months. “We have compiled the data of fire incidents in the state in the last five years and we are now trying to find out the reason behind such incidents. Accordingly, we will make people aware about precautions to be taken to prevent such incidents.”
Mishra said around 10,000 fire incidents occurred in Bihar in 2019. “We have conducted 3,000 fire audits and 5,000 mock drills across the state last year,” he said.
The oil marketing companies said they issued handbooks of dos and don’ts to people when they buy LPG connections and cylinder.
An official of Indian Oil Corporation Limited said most of the cooking gas fire incidents take place due to gas leakage from rubber tube, burner mistakenly kept on and poor handling of gas appliances. “We issue all important instructions about usage of cooking gas in our manual handbook but customers do not pay much attention to these things,” an official said.