The massive fire in Putra Heights on April 1, which was caused by subsidence, caused a massive gas pipe explosion that sent flames as high as a 10-storey building.
Selangor Menteri Besar, Datuk Seri Amirudin Shari, announced that an investigation found that the gas pipe installed since 2000 had shifted by 15.9 centimetres due to soil moisture, groundwater accumulation and prolonged climate stress.
However, for Puchong Member of Parliament, Yeo Bee Yin, natural factors are no excuse for abdicating responsibility.
She stressed that the national oil and gas company, PETRONAS, must take full responsibility for all damages caused by the incident.
Yeo, who is also a former Energy Minister and an engineer in the oil and gas industry, stressed that subsidence cannot be used as an excuse because the incident was caused by failures in infrastructure maintenance and monitoring.
She also stated that assistance to victims so far is still far from sufficient to cover the actual losses suffered by the residents.
More worryingly, PETRONAS confirmed that several other parts of the 2,680-kilometre pipeline network, including from Kerteh to Segamat and all the way to the Thai border, are likely to face the same risk of soil stability.
If this time there is no accountability, how many more areas will have to burn before action is taken?
Lives are not experiments. If PETRONAS does not learn from the Putra Heights tragedy, the next explosion will no longer be an ‘unexpected event’ but a deliberate negligence.
