Yemisi Izuora
The Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) says it will commence an inquest into the fire incident that claimed two lives in a Second Coming Company, a gas plant in located Magodo, Lagos.
The Director of the Department, Mr Mordecai Ladan, stated this during the inspection of the plant.
According to him all parties involved will be invited for interrogation to know the cause of the fire incident and what to do next.
He said that the inquest which would commence immediately after the inspection, would last for three weeks.
The Director said that after the inquest the department would determine the fate of the gas plant.
“Most time gas plant fire incident used to be as a result of poor management attitude or lack of corrective measure.
“The inquest will determine the cause of the incident and what next to do.
“The department always hold quarterly interactive forum with the association of cooking gas plants owners to warn them of fire incident especially during harmattan period.
“The fire incident here is very devastating,” he said.
Ladan said that the premises of Second Coming Gas Plant was licenced in 1996 when there was no structure in the area.
“There was no structure here when the plant was given licence for operation in 1996,
“We are saying this to let the people know that the facility had been located here before the residents started building their houses.
“The whole place was bushy when they started operation, it wasn’t like this before,” he said.
On the cause of the incident, Mr Ifenna Okeke, a director of the gas plant said the incident was as a result of gas leakages from one of the company truck.
“On Monday morning around 7am, we discovered a gas leakage from one of the company trucks.
“Operation Manager immediately turned on all the company fire resistants and alerted the Fire Service on the leakage.
“The firemen came, put their firefighters motor at alert and started stopping motors plying the road because the gas leakage had circulated by that time.
“Suddenly, a Golf car driver who had been warned not to start his car started the engine and everywhere exploded.
“The two persons that were burnt due to the incident were unknown.
“Everybody is aware of the leakages, we shouted so that people should leave the premises and non of our staff and customers were around.
“Maybe they were sleeping when they got burnt due to the explosion but it is very unfortunate,” he said.