Since the Glorietta 2 "explosion", as I would prefer to call it, walking my usual route from Ayala MRT to work and home is never the same. Today, my friend Bing and I decided to walk to home along Ayala Avenue instead of going to Greenbelt, passing Glorietta before reaching the MRT station. This has been my route since I started working in Makati and I had never -- that last Friday morning of Oct 19, felt the ominous atmosphere that would put the entire Metro Manila in Red Alert.
I actually refused to post any details in this blog until I have read more information about the explosion. Initial reports last Friday claimed that an LPG (liquified petroleum gas) leak caused the explosion to reports of a bomb blast by Muslim extremists, and as of the most recent update, findings reveal that the blast may have been purely accidental.
Arson and police investigators said they had found signs of a “gas explosion” but nothing that would indicate that it was a bomb that triggered the blast. Fire Supt. Fenniore Jaudian, chief of the Interagency Arson Task Force, Monday told reporters that there was an “accumulation of methane” in the basement of the Glorietta 2 when one of the pumps in the sewage system malfunctioned.
Heat from the motors, ventilator fans, and automatic switches in the area, Jaudian said, could have ignited the methane inside the enclosed basement. The heat generated could have triggered an eruption of a 3,500-liter diesel tank also located in the basement.
“There were signs of a buildup of pressure,” Jaudian said. “From our evaluation, it’s more on the methane (angle) and from Day 1, that has not changed. What we have seen points to a gas explosion.”
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