THE GOVERNMENT Electrical and Mechanical Service (EMS) yesterday revealed that a leak at a gas storage area in Larnaca in October had been caused by faulty valves.
High pressure from liquid gas being transferred into a spherical storage tank from a ship caused the valves to malfunction and the gas to leak into an adjacent empty tank, which was under inspection at the time by engineers. When an engineer tried to turn on the lights to continue the inspection the following morning, a spark ignited the gas causing an explosion. No one was injured.
The incident – reports of which only emerged yesterday – has raised fears over safety measures taken by the Electrical and Mechanical Service. EMC Director George Christodoulides yesterday admitted a disaster could have occurred had there been more gas in the sphere.
“The Co-op hired a private licensed engineer to inspect the sphere, and the engineer hired someone else to help him,” Christodoulou said.
“During the inspection that was being carried out in the empty sphere, liquid gas leaked through faulty valves into the sphere. When the workers turned on the light in the morning, the gas ignited, but thankfully the engineers weren’t harmed and there was no structural damage to the sphere.
“If there had been someone in the sphere when the engineer turned on the lights we would probably have had victims. The supervisor on the site did not follow the set safety measures, either because of negligence or simply because he didn’t know he had to, and he allowed the use of a standard light inside the sphere, which ultimately caused the gas to ignite,” he said.
Christodoulou said that if staff had followed the safety instructions and used specialised ‘sparkless’ light bulbs there would have been no explosion.
However, he claimed the company carrying out the transfer of the liquid gas had also neglected to follow correct safety procedures and had transferred more gas than they should into the storage sphere, and that caused the valves to malfunction.
“There were no sparkless light bulbs installed in the tank and that is something that will be investigated,” Christodoulou said.
“If all the measures in the Code of Practice had been followed to the letter by both parties, we wouldn’t have had such an accident.”
Christodoulou said the government would investigate the incident and would “take measures against those responsible”.
The incident has raised eyebrows, since the government failed to inform the public about the incident. Green deputy George Perdikis has raised the issue at the House of Representatives.
A statement from the Ministry of Communications and Works yesterday confirmed that there had been an explosion, but said it had not deemed it necessary to have the incident made public.
“The Ministry of Communications and Works felt that it was not necessary to inform the public of the incident, because there was no leakage in the environment, and there were no health hazards,” the statement said.
“However, we have asked for the immediate replacement of the faulty valves, a full inspection of the area to confirm that the sphere was not structurally damaged, and we have the parties involved for a full report on the incident, in order to investigate any actions that might have been against the law.”
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