Selangor police chief Hussein Omar Khan said there is no need to reveal the names of the contractors allegedly involved in the explosion, adding that the police’s investigation into the blaze has not been classified as a criminal case.
Stressing that the police are currently focused on determining the cause of the incident, he said that 118 people have been called in for questioning as of today.
“The 15 people questioned include contractors, sub-contractors and workers,” he said at a press conference at the incident site control post here.
Hussein said while the police found that the distance between the sewage pipe and the gas pipeline was 1.6m, the sewage pipe did not show any signs of obvious disturbance that could jeopardise the gas pipeline.
He added that it was still too early to determine if the excavation work conducted by the contractors had affected the gas pipeline.
“We need to wait until the entire pipeline in the surrounding area is exposed and further investigations are conducted,” he said.
Hussein also said the police have received 642 reports regarding the explosion, including one report stating that people were playing with firecrackers on the night of March 31.
However, he played down the possibility of the firecrackers causing the explosion as the accident broke out in the morning.
Hussein was previously reported to have said that the excavation work was conducted 30m away from the explosion site and that police would need two more weeks to investigate if the earthworks had caused the blast.
He said parts of the area were being dug to replace a sewage pipe. The excavation work started in mid-March and halted on March 30 – two days before the blaze, which took eight hours to extinguish.
The fire, which broke out last Tuesday morning along Jalan Putra Harmoni, engulfed a 500m section of a gas pipeline, causing severe damage to homes and vehicles. - FMT
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