RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

The ex­plo­sion at RRM Plaza on High Street, which sent shards of glass fly­ing and in­jured one per­son, re­mained un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion yes­ter­day as fire pre­ven­tion of­fi­cers re­turned to the scene to de­ter­mine what caused the blast.

Pres­i­dent of the Greater San Fer­nan­do Cham­ber of Com­merce and own­er of RRM Mall Ki­ran Singh said he was await­ing the out­come of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion be­fore the build­ing could be hand­ed back to man­age­ment for clean-up and re­pairs.

He said the ex­plo­sion oc­curred at the Sky­line Bar, which was closed at the time, but the en­tire build­ing re­mained closed as a pre­cau­tion.

Singh said the Trinidad and To­ba­go Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion had dis­con­nect­ed pow­er to the build­ing fol­low­ing the ex­plo­sion and would on­ly re­con­nect it af­ter the Fire Ser­vice gave clear­ance for the premis­es to be re-en­tered.

He said busi­ness­es would be al­lowed to re­sume op­er­a­tions once the nec­es­sary ap­provals were grant­ed.

“We can’t de­ter­mine as to what caused the ex­plo­sion,” Singh said, adding that he want­ed a thor­ough in­ves­ti­ga­tion and a pos­i­tive out­come that would al­low the busi­ness­es to re­open as soon as pos­si­ble.

The blast oc­curred af­ter con­cerns about a pos­si­ble gas leak had been raised at the plaza about a week and a half ear­li­er.

Singh said a gas scent had been de­tect­ed in the food court, prompt­ing an emer­gency call to Ram­co, which at­tend­ed the premis­es and ad­dressed the prob­lem.

He said no gas odour had been de­tect­ed af­ter that in­ter­ven­tion.

The gas com­pa­ny was called again fol­low­ing Tues­day evening’s ex­plo­sion to en­sure the gas sup­ply to the build­ing was shut off, while se­cu­ri­ty per­son­nel al­so act­ed to cut off the sup­ply af­ter the blast.

Singh said there had al­so been ac­tiv­i­ty in­volv­ing the gas sup­ply be­fore the ex­plo­sion, but stressed that it was too ear­ly to de­ter­mine whether this was con­nect­ed to the in­ci­dent.

While spec­u­la­tion cir­cu­lat­ed that the ex­plo­sion could have been de­lib­er­ate, Singh said he was not aware of any dis­grun­tled em­ploy­ees who could have been re­spon­si­ble.

He de­clined to spec­u­late on the cause, say­ing that re­spon­si­bil­i­ty rest­ed with in­ves­ti­ga­tors.

The ex­plo­sion caused sig­nif­i­cant dis­rup­tion to busi­ness­es housed in the mul­ti-storey build­ing, in­clud­ing re­tail out­lets and the food court.

Singh said he could not yet pro­vide an es­ti­mate of the dam­age or say how many busi­ness­es or work­ers had been af­fect­ed.

He said the clo­sure would re­sult in loss of in­come for busi­ness­es and their em­ploy­ees un­til the build­ing was de­clared safe.

Singh praised the re­sponse of the fire and po­lice ser­vices and the Tu­na­puna City Cor­po­ra­tion, say­ing the area was cor­doned off af­ter the ex­plo­sion to pro­tect pedes­tri­ans, taxi dri­vers, busi­ness op­er­a­tors and oth­ers in the vicin­i­ty.

San Fer­nan­do May­or Robert Par­ris al­so vis­it­ed the scene and of­fered sup­port, he said.

Singh said his im­me­di­ate pri­or­i­ty was to have the in­ves­ti­ga­tion com­plet­ed, gain ac­cess to the build­ing, be­gin re­pairs and re­store op­er­a­tions.

“We are hop­ing that by the end of the week, it’s op­er­a­tional,” he said.

Fire­fight­ers at the scene could not share in­for­ma­tion on the cause of the ex­plo­sion, as the mat­ter re­mains un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion.