LP Gas Blamed for Shopping Facility Blast after Quake

Tokyo, Aug. 6 (Jiji Press)--Liquefied petroleum gas has been cited as the probable cause of the deadly explosion that occurred at a shopping facility shortly after last week’s powerful earthquake in the southwestern Japan prefecture of Kumamoto.

The industry ministry said Wednesday that it shared the view with police and fire authorities that LP gas is highly likely to have caused the explosion at the Aeon Mall Kumamoto facility in the town of Kashima in the prefecture.

The blast, which happened about an hour and a half after the earthquake struck the prefecture on the afternoon of July 28, killed seven workers at the shopping facility.

Fukuoka Oxygen Co., which had supplied LP gas to Aeon Mall Kumamoto, submitted on Wednesday a report on the explosion to the ministry’s Kyushu Industrial Safety and Inspection Department through the Kumamoto prefectural government under the high pressure gas safety law.

The company, based in the city of Kurume, Fukuoka Prefecture, a Kumamoto neighbor, operates in the Kyushu southwestern region, including Kumamoto and Fukuoka, and Yamaguchi Prefecture, near Kyushu.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]