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Gas line blast causes fire at Bangla Motor

Staff Correspondent
Flames spouted out of a defective underground pipeline of Titas Gas, causing panic and disruption to vehicular movement on the busy Kazi Nazrul Islam Avenue near Bangla Motor intersection yesterdayafternoon.
The surrounding roads experienced a massive gridlock for over three hours as the sudden incident forced the traffic authorities to block portion of the road for about half an hour.
Meanwhile, four female workers were taken to hospital suffering from gas inhalation following a gas pipeline explosion inside Igloo Ice Cream factory at Shyampur in the city.
As the flames at Bangla Motor shot up about ten feet into the air. panic-stricken pedestrians, locals and passengers from hundreds of
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stranded vehicles in the vicinity were seen running for safety, said witnesses.
Two fire service units reached the spot within 40 minutes and doused the fire. Police reopened part of the road about an hour later Titas Gas personnel were repairing the damaged pipeline till filing of this report.
After the fire was put out, a pothole about the size of a manhole, nearly two square feet, was visible on the road and gas was still spewing out of the pothole and nearby manholes.
Mamun Mahmud, senior station officer of Fire Service and Civil Defence and leader of the fire service team that extinguished the fire, told The Daily Star. "We reached the spot in about half an hour of the incident and we put out the fire in about 10 minutes."
Abdul Hannan, deputy general manager (DGM-Distribution) of Titas Gas, said, "We are yet to determine the cause of the fire."
"After the road is dug, we'll be able to know if the pipeline was leaking or if there's any other cause," he said and adding. "It may take between three and ten hours to repair the damaged pipeline."
The supply of gas through the pipeline will remain suspended during the repair work, he also said.
The four Igloo workers who were admitted to Dhaka Medical College Hospital with gas inhalation injuries were identified as Rebecca. 16, Suma, 18, Rashida. 25, andKabita, 15.
Police said the a gas pipeline inside the factory building located at Ku tubpur ofShyampur exploded with a loud bang at around 1:00pm. emitting heavy smoke and gas that injured the workers.