ISLAMABAD:The federal capital’s growing risk of inferno in hotels, shopping malls was looming amid widespread use of refillable liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) cylinders by the eateries.
The locally made LPG cylinders lacked proper mechanisms like built-in gas leakage control system or regulator to prevent gas leakages as it required all these gadgets to be installed additionally, Sunny Badshah a cook at a restaurant told reporter.
He said the LPG cylinder of 45.4 kilogrammes was used commercially as an additional source other than Sui Gas connection or in some cases the hotels were only reliant on LPG cylinders.
When asked about preventive measures, he said the only prevention done was offloading the cylinders from supply trucks without throwing them hard on ground, no inflammable material placed near it, keeping the cylinder as closer to the ovens as possible to avoid usage of long pipes, place a fire extinguisher if possible in the kitchen premises, ensure proper ventilation and proper closure of cylinder valves after usage.
He regretted that the locally made regulators were at times not good at stopping leakage of gas from the cylinders and it needed additional care while handling operations while using LPG cylinders.
However, as per the Park Arab Refinery Limited (PARCO) a standard 200-kg cylinder was designed for large businesses with huge requirements of LPG but lacked bulk storage tanks due to limited space available.
“These can also be installed in batteries to serve higher off take requirements, while large scale commercial enterprises such as restaurants can also use this cylinder as an alternative to standard 45 kg commercial cylinders.”
Sadly, only one restaurant cum café in a private housing society of the federal capital had installed this refillable LPG cylinder which was safer and easily manageable solution, a researcher from an Islamabad based think tank working on renewable energy solutions said requesting anonymity.
After the recent fire incident in one of the mega shopping malls of the capital, the Centaurus Mall, the Deputy Commissioner Islamabad had issued order to seal the Mall for further probe.
A fact-finding committee was also constituted to investigate the causes of the fire. The Committee convener would be the Additional Deputy Magistrate comprising a seven-member committee including AC Industrial Area, District Emergency Officer Rawalpindi, Director Building Control and Director Engineering of CDA.
The committee would also review the fire safety system and alarm functionality within the building and would also estimate the damages due to the fire. It would submit its report and recommendations within three days, the notification issued by the Deputy Commissioner said.
When contacted the Additional Deputy Commissioner General for a probe into the matter of LPG cylinders rampantly used by restaurants in the federal capital, he remained unavailable for his version.