This?
forumosa.com/taiwan/viewtop … 1&t=132902
Edit:
Sorry, Sofun beat me to it, much better data
That should work, guys. Thank you very much!
[quote=“Nuit”]Blame being laid squarely at LCY’s door.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-28619502[/quote]
“A statement from Kaohsiung city authorities said that LCY had known about the drop in pressure but had continued to transmit propylene gas.”
If you’re a businessman, the gas is your raw material. You do spend money to purchase it.
Property market is ruined.
Saw local tv report which tried to imply President Ma was responsible as he did not try to prevent this situation from happening. [using my wife’s translation]
It’s probably the proximity of gas lines to densely inhabited areas that’s the biggest problem, I doubt that this kind of deadly mix occurs in other regions of the world. Why do they need to run these pipelines through urban neighbourhoods?
Exactly. All gas lines should be ripped up and no more gas lines running through residences.
This should not have even had a chance to happen.
How else would you cross the city? I’m guessing that this is shipped into the harbor and needs to be distributed outwards. There’s basically no way to get it from the harbor to anywhere w/o crossing a big urban area. Or are you suggesting 1000’s of tanker trucks?
I see a lot of knee jerk reactions to this even in this thread. Tommy thinks that all homes and apts should have giant canisters instead of piped gas. Awesome idea to have 1000’s more of those gas tank motorcycles running around town.
The problem rests squarely on the gas company for having shitty procedures for dealing with a massive drop in pressure and on the gov’t for not making sure that companies have proper safety procedures in place.
SOP where I come from. Taipei is not that safe in this regard, but still acceptable. Why? Any factories, any petrochemical factories in your neighborhood? People in Kaohsiung complained about factories too close to homes, fire in 2008… so?
The problem is the amount of factories running lines, pipelines no one knows where they are, and no responsibility. A certain company involved was kicked out of Hsinchu, due to its long history of dumping pollution. Guess who is going to be the first suspect?
Government representatives are being greeted… with expletives. Plasticizers, land grabs, private Hou… long list of grievances where the government does not enforce the letter of the Law and protect the victims of injustice. Now this. This is a big test.
That’s a bold statement by whatever green-leaning media said it, because it would implicate Chen Chu, too.
I also forgot one other area of blame. How on earth can emergency services not know whose gas lines are buried where in case there is an emergency? There was something like 3 hours since gas was reported leaking and the gas company saw a pressure drop before the explosion happened. With any kind of action plan this could have been prevented or at least greatly reduced.
I’m not saying that every company needs to be running gas lines under the city but residential lines are common throughout the world and the fault is completely procedural. I wouldn’t be surprised if the technology for detecting leaks is quite dated also.
PG and E had a big blast here in San Mateo a few years back. A fraction of the number of people killed compared to this blast.
IT is debatable whether its safer to have houses run on propane gas or LNG gas via a pipeline or to use propane tanks.
Given how dangerous a gas line rupture can be, as proven here, I tend to go with gas tanks.
This way danger is localized. One exploding gas tank can still kill a handful of people and cause a fire to an apartment, but it is localized, while a pipeline explosion can cause what happened.
What is inexcusable is to allow industrial gas to run through neighorhoods.
Industrial gas should run from harbors to user in industrial zones, not residential.
Bhopal proved having a pesticide factory near homes was very much NOT a good idea.
This is not on the same scale but is in the same vein.
Only safe way is to rip up all gas lines, shut down factories dealing with industrial gas in residential areas. Set up industrial areas to deal with the such.
Industrial gas has no reason to be piped through residential zones.
That brings up whether or not CPC runs jet fuel lines out to the Hsiao Kang and Taoyuan and Taipei airports.
And if one is to have any underground gas lines, one certainly should have means to shut them off in small blocks and have the means for constant monitoring.
As tommy said , these are industrial gas lines running through neighbourhoods. Accident waiting to happen…and it did.
I doubt many cities in the world allow this in their zoning code.
Also there should have been detectors in the sewers for gas leaks right? We have them in our homes for minor has leaks.
Taiwan = Chabaduo = Cost cutting to make a quick buck
Taiwan has zoning laws. Wait. Ah, Taiwan has zoning laws? Since when? and how are they enforced?
I wonder whose bright idea it was to keep the gas being pumped when none of it was arriving for hours. :loco: Lets just keep it flowing, maybe it will eventually show up. :bravo:
Anyway as was mentioned, in many countries of course natural gas can be pumped under the street but they would never allow industrial chemicals and gas to flow in residential neighborhoods.
In addition, countries like Canada, USA, etc have such strict standards when it comes to gas pipes and connections, you rarely hear of such an incident.
Shouldn’t the peoples move out? This is not like living in Chernobyl or Fukushima but the risks are still there. The houses around the area are probably going to lose value.
Robert, do you mean the people who live on the streets that have already been blown up? Why? They can’t blow up twice - the damage has already been done.
Or do you mean all the people in that general area? The gas lines have been turned off so there’s not a chance of another disaster at present. And where do you suggest they move to? You just expect 200,000 to get up and find another place to live, damn the logistics and financial concerns?
And of course the houses will lose value in that area of Kaohsiung. Luckily (?) most Taiwanese don’t have the same idea about property values as westerners. Meaning that they don’t tend to up and switch homes every few years. Generally, when they buy a house they stay in that house (and then their children take it over) so the houses losing value won’t have quite the same negative impact that it would in the west (and also reinforces my other argument - not only can most probably not move, they wouldn’t want to anyway).
[quote=“Taipan1975”]Robert, do you mean the people who live on the streets that have already been blown up? Why? They can’t blow up twice - the damage has already been done.
Or do you mean all the people in that general area? The gas lines have been turned off so there’s not a chance of another disaster at present. And where do you suggest they move to? You just expect 200,000 to get up and find another place to live, damn the logistics and financial concerns?
And of course the houses will lose value in that area of Kaohsiung. Luckily (?) most Taiwanese don’t have the same idea about property values as westerners. Meaning that they don’t tend to up and switch homes every few years. Generally, when they buy a house they stay in that house (and then their children take it over) so the houses losing value won’t have quite the same negative impact that it would in the west (and also reinforces my other argument - not only can most probably not move, they wouldn’t want to anyway).[/quote]
It is not the first time Kaohsiung has experienced a fatal gas blast. In 1997, an explosion killed five people and injured around 20 when a team from the state-run Chinese Petroleum Corp. tried to unearth a section of gas pipeline in a road construction project.
Well, can’t say where they should stay but anyway there are risks.
[quote=“Taipan1975”]Robert, do you mean the people who live on the streets that have already been blown up? Why? They can’t blow up twice - the damage has already been done.
Or do you mean all the people in that general area? The gas lines have been turned off so there’s not a chance of another disaster at present. And where do you suggest they move to? You just expect 200,000 to get up and find another place to live, damn the logistics and financial concerns?
And of course the houses will lose value in that area of Kaohsiung. Luckily (?) most Taiwanese don’t have the same idea about property values as westerners. Meaning that they don’t tend to up and switch homes every few years. Generally, when they buy a house they stay in that house (and then their children take it over) so the houses losing value won’t have quite the same negative impact that it would in the west (and also reinforces my other argument - not only can most probably not move, they wouldn’t want to anyway).[/quote]
There are still 260 tons of benzene trapped in the broken pipelines. It will maybe a week to pump it all out. And that is for starters. Who knows what else is down there.
I only pray we do not get a quake or anything like that.