A series of
powerful gas blasts killed at least 25 people and injured up to 267 before dawn
today in Greater Kaohsiung, overturning cars and ripping up roads as terrified
residents fled an inferno.
The
explosions sparked massive fires which tore through the Cianjhen District (前鎮), leaving a yawning
trench running for hundreds of meters down the middle of a major thoroughfare
and littering the streets with dead bodies.
Dramatic
video footage captured by dashboard cameras inside cars showed multiple blasts
and pillars of flame erupting from manholes as drivers frantically tried to
avoid being engulfed.
In its latest
update, the National Fire Agency said the blasts killed at least 25 people and
revised the number of injured to 267. Four firefighters who rushed to the scene
after residents smelled gas were among those killed in the blasts.
The
explosions, believed to have been triggered by gas leaking from underground
pipelines, were powerful enough to upturn whole cars and split open
paved roads.
One street had been ripped along its length, swallowing several
fire engines
and other vehicles.
Witnesses
reported seeing bodies strewn across the streets.
“I saw fire
soaring up to possibly 20 stories high after a blast and fire engines and cars
being blown away while around 10 bodies lay on the street,” eyewitness Johnson
Liu said.
Local
television aired footage from a dashboard camera capturing a loud explosion
which tore up the road in front of a blue truck as it waited at a junction.
Rocks and debris could be seen showering down on the street before the footage
faded to black.
A second
dashboard camera uploaded online showed a car frantically making a U-turn after
the initial explosion only to hurtle towards another inferno coming up from
beneath the road.
“I’m scared
to death”, one of the occupants was recorded saying. “It’s like a bombing,
let’s hurry.”
Residents
were seen carrying the injured on makeshift stretchers as ambulances rushed to
the scene and firefighters in yellow overalls began removing bodies from the
area.
“The
explosions were like thunder and the road in front of my shop ripped open. It
felt like an earthquake,” the Central News Agency (CNA) quoted a witness as
saying.
The fire
agency said 22 firefighters were among the injured and two were unaccounted
for.
“The local
fire department received calls of gas leaks late Thursday and then there were a
series of blasts around midnight affecting an area of 2 to 3 square
kilometers,” the fire agency said in a statement.
A city
government official said the blazes had mostly been extinguished or burned
themselves out by mid-day, but a few fires were continuing. City authorities
said they had sealed off 6km
of road.
Residents
described how the neighborhood smelt strongly of gas before the disaster.
One local
resident surnamed Peng said: “There was a heavy odor of gas and ... then I
heard explosions and saw fire spurting from a store.”
“My house
shook as if there were an earthquake and the power went out,” CNA quoted her as
saying.
Emergency
rooms in city hospitals were packed with casualties and officials warned that
the death toll was expected to rise.
The city
government was evacuating more than 1,100 residents from the affected areas to
schools and shelters as they tried to locate the source of the leaks and warned
people to stay away.
The Ministry
of National Defense dispatched about 1,400 soldiers to the scene to help with
the disaster effort.
It is not the first time Kaohsiung
gas blasts 氣爆
footage 鏡頭
dashboard cameras 行車紀錄器
engulfed 吞沒
underground pipelines 地下管線
dispatched 出動
Where: Kaohsiung
What: gas blasts
Why: be triggered by gas leaking from underground
pipelines
When: Fri, Aug 01, 2014
How: through the bombing of gas blasts
Who: people in Cianjhen District and so on
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