KUALA LUMPUR (April 4): The initial technical report on the cause of Tuesday’s gas pipeline explosion and fire in Putra Heights, Subang Jaya, is expected to be ready in two weeks.

Selangor police chief Datuk Hussein Omar Khan said the report could only be completed by then, as the impact of the explosion had changed the original landscape of the area, rendering it unstable.

“Work to stabilise the area will be done in these two or three days, and only when it’s stable can we (the technical team) dig and obtain evidence, whether there are explosives or any other physical evidence that can be used by the technical investigators,” he said at a media conference at the incident control centre here on Friday afternoon.

The authority governing the technical team was under the Occupational Safety and Health Act and the National Disaster Management Agency (NADMA) Order No 1, he said, adding that the explosion involving one of three natural gas pipelines had produced an eight-metre deep and 70-metre wide crater.

He also said that based on the Fire and Rescue Department, there were three elements needed to produce an explosion — gas, air and ignition, and that if it was just a gas leak, it would not have resulted in an explosion, but further investigation would be conducted on the matter.

"Our preliminary investigation found that the gas pipeline was over 30 years old and was built in 1991, with Petronas conducting regular maintenance,” Hussein said, adding that the investigation included Petronas data to see if there was any early warning about a leak in the incident location.

Leaks from gas pipes have previously occurred in Sabah and Sarawak as a result of earthquakes, he added.

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