KUALA LUMPUR: The final physical assessment of residences affected by the gas pipeline fire in Putra Heights, Subang Jaya, is completed, says Fire and Rescue Department director-general Datuk Nor Hisham Mohammad.
The report, he said, was tabled by the assessment team to the department yesterday evening before it was to be made public.
It took time to conduct the assessment work because it involved other agencies as well, and also because the crater was filled with water, which had to be flushed out, he said yesterday.
On Saturday, Nor Hisham said the findings on the fire crater would be presented to the Selangor State Disaster Management Committee soon.
Selangor Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Amirudin Shari had said that as of Friday, 130 of the 235 houses in Taman Putra Harmoni that were affected by the incident were confirmed safe and their occupants had been allowed to return home.
A total of 87 houses were destroyed.
As of Saturday, 509 families had registered as victims of the tragedy. Registration, which will enable the victims to receive aid provided by various quarters, closed at noon yesterday.{
Meanwhile, on the sixth day of operations at ground zero yesterday, the main focus was on draining the rainwater that had accumulated in the crater caused by the explosion, said Subang Jaya police chief ACP Wan Azlan Wan Mamat.
The draining, he said, was critical to enabling safety assessment work to resume.
“This morning, there is still a large volume of water that needs to be pumped out before we can proceed with the usual safety evaluations,” he told Bernama.
The PETRONAS gas pipeline fire at 8.10am last Tuesday saw flames rising more than 30m high with the temperature reaching 1,000°C.
It took almost eight hours to completely extinguish the blaze.
