Wednesday, July 7, 2010

The Deadly Gas Cylinders

In an effort to minimize subsidy for imported fuels, in 2006 the government converted the use of Kerosene into Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG) distributed in 3-Kg. Gas Cylinders .

Since then, every day the news media have been reporting about so many people who died and/or wounded because of the explosions of the very low quality Gas Cylinders. In response to people's protests, some members of the House of Representatives have asked the government to withdraw all Gas Cylinders from circulation.

The most shocking thing is that in spite of the frequent explosions causing many casualties, no one seems to be willing to take responsibility for those explosions. The state-owned petroleum company PT. Pertamina that supplied the Gas and Gas Cylinders, blamed the consumers for not being careful in using the Gas Cylinder, its Hose and Regulator.

Only after the President, Vice President and some Cabinet Ministers commented on this grave matter, PT Pertamina come with a suggestion that LPG consumers should change the Hose and Regulator for the Gas Cylinder they currently used by buying new, better quality and cheaper ones, from Pertamina.

Considering that the 3-kg. Gas Cylinders have exploded, killed and wounded so many people in many parts of Indonesia, I hope that the government would treat this case very important, therefore ask the law enforcement agencies to investigate thoroughly, like they investigated the far less important Sex Video case.
I also hope that PT Pertamina would closely monitor the distribution of Gas Cylinders, so that they would not explode again.   

Related media reports :
- Converted to Death (Tempo) 
- Polisi Selidiki Penyebab Ledakan Gas 3 Kg (Inilah)
- 14 Produsen Selang Tabung Gas 3 Kg Dievaluasi (PosKota)
- DPR: Tarik Semua Tabung Gas 3 Kg. (VivaNews)






5 comments:

TUKANG CoLoNG said...

dan dari berita saya juga denger kalo banyak alat2 kompor LPG yang diselundupkan. ironis.:(

Unknown said...

Tukang CoLoNG,
Memang masalah ini sangat ironis.

Unknown said...

You have to be so careful with LPG - it is the most flammable product round. Your mention of kerosene reminded me of an incident back home in the South Island here in New Zealand many years ago - a service station sold customers white spirits instead of kerosene - they sent messages over radio stations for hours. Must have done the trick, because there were no incidents of kerosene heaters exploding - which is what would have happened if customers put white spirits in their heaters.

peter

Unknown said...

Why is the gas cylinders so substandard. Is there any quality control body to vet all products in Indonesia? Hope this matter is resolved before a bigger tragedy occur.

Unknown said...

@Peter/Kiwi,
You are very right that we should
be very careful with LPG and other fuels. The standard quality should be very strict.

@Umihoney,
We've got the special agency that control standard of good sold here, we've got the national industrial standard, only that the control is very weak and law enforcement is the same. They just discovered producer of the fake gas cylinder.