Rangoon Commuters Afraid of Gas Explosions

By WAI MOE

Many people in Rangoon are afraid to ride the city’s buses and taxis after a pickup truck exploded on Monday, with speculation rife that the blast which took seven lives was caused by an exploding compressed natural gas (CNG) cylinder on the truck.

Speaking to The Irrawaddy on Monday, a Rangoon police officer familiar with the case said that the deaths could have been caused by a CNG explosion.

Meanwhile, state-run The New Light of Myanmar reported on Tuesday that “the cause of the blast is under investigation.”

The passenger-carrying pickup truck was en route from Taikkyi Township to Rangoon’s main vegetable market, Thiri Mingalar, when it exploded at about 2 a.m. on Monday morning, killing the driver, his assistant and five passengers, and leaving one passenger critically injured.

According to a resident in Insein Township, it took five hours for police to arrive on the scene while the bodies lay strewn in front of the UNFAO office.

A day after the fatal blast, many people in Rangoon have expressed fear and uncertainty about using the city’s risky public transport. Two previous explosions have been blamed on CNG cylinders in the past five weeks.

A young man in Rangoon who works with an advertising company said he and his friends were scared to use CNG-powered vehicles after they learned about the explosion on Monday.

“We have to use the CNG vehicles, even though we are afraid of gas explosions, because every passenger bus and pickup truck has been transformed to CNG in the past three years,” he said. “Perhaps 80 percent of taxis are also running on CNG. We have no way of escaping it.”

In previous incidents, two people were injured in early September when a passenger bus exploded in Insein Township. And on October 10, another bus exploded in downtown Rangoon, although there were no casualties.

A commuter from Dagon Myothit Township in Rangoon said, “It’s like sitting on a time bomb.”
In 2005, the Burmese authorities initiated a scheme to transform all public vehicles to CNG. Although CNG is less polluting than oil-based fuels, the cost of transforming vehicles was high.
A Rangoon taxi driver told The Irrawaddy that it cost about one million kyat (about US $1,000 at that time) to convert one vehicle.

Rangoon business sources say that junta-friendly IGE Co Ltd was involved in the CNG vehicle transformation and has also won contracts to build CNG filling stations around the country.
IGE is run by Nay Aung and Pyi Aung, sons of powerful Minister of Industry-1 Aung Thaung.

A Burmese engineer said on Tuesday that CNG-powered vehicles are frequently allowed to bypass the license registration process, because officials from the car licensing office were prepared to overlook safety aspects if the vehicle owners paid under-the-table for a quick license.

“If you do not pay ‘tea money’ to the officials your license application can take a long time,” the engineer said. “Corruption is everywhere in Burma.”

Former capital Rangoon has been rocked by a series of explosions in recent weeks. On September 25, a bomb exploded at a crowded area near the city hall, injuring three people.

“If I stand at a bus stop, I am afraid of a bomb blast. If I am on bus, I am afraid of a CNG blast,” a housewife from Tamwe Township sighed.