KARACHI, Dec 3: At least 17 persons, including a minor boy, Usman, were injured in a CNG plant explosion at a petrol station in Defence Housing Authority on Wednesday.

The blast apparently took place due to some technical fault.

A Shell Pakistan statement said that “the cause of the incident is not yet known”.

The explosion, witnesses said, took place around 3:45pm in the CNG plant situated behind the “Select shop”, on the premises of Shell petrol station in Phase-VI, Khayaban-i-Bahria, DHA.

The roof and rear wall of the shop collapsed with a bang following the explosion. It triggered fire in the plant which was brought under control by the fire department staff of the city government after four hours of hectic effort.

Apart from serious damages to the shop, the roof and other fixtures of the pump also got damaged in the explosion.

The impact of the blast can be assessed from the fact that a car (ABS-316) parked outside the outlet went several feet up into the air and landed on its roof on the ground.

Those injured were mostly employees of the company and some customers who were present at the outlet at the time.

An eyewitness, Tahir Mahmood, a sales representative of a private company, told Dawn that he pulled out seven to eight injured out of the shop who were shifted to a nearby hospital in a police mobile which was first to reach the spot.

He claimed that before the explosion, there was a nauseating smell of the gas at the pump and a lightning.

The Inspector general of Police, Syed Kamal Shah, quoting an eyewitness said that an injured man who was probably manager of the CNG plant, had told the eyewitness that around 3pm, there was a significant leakage of gas.

The provincial police chief said that according to initial findings, the explosion occurred accidentally, but the police would look into all aspects of the incident.

A senior police official, quoting some filling station staff, said that the plant was out of order for the last few days.

A shut-down notice was posted on the filling station, saying that the “CNG filling is suspended due to carbon problem and would resume as soon as the SSGC would rectify the problem.

However, a spokesman for the Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC), told Dawn that “Our gas supply to the petrol station had been off since Oct 25”.

The injured were identified as Fareed Latif, Mirza Siddiq Beg, Kamran Umeed Ali, Aleemuddin, Safeer, Shah Rehman, Mudassir, Tahir Shah, Anum Dad, Mohammad Nawaz, Mohammad Tariq, Umar Khan, Basharat, Zafar Iqbal and Usman.

Two unknown persons who had suffered minor injuries were discharged from the hospital after treatment, hospital sources said.

Hospital sources described the condition of Safeer and two others as serious.

Apart from (ABS-316), (E-3370) and (AEC-394) which were parked few yards away from the shop were damaged as concrete blocks landed on them.

In the aftermath of the explosion, police detained two officials from the petrol station and shifted them to the Gizri police station for questioning.

A statement issued by Shell, further said “The explosion occurred in late afternoon around 4pm. Those injured in the incident were rushed to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre where medical assistance is being provided to them, there has been considerable damage to the petrol pump”.

A handout issued by the Sindh government said that the blast at the petrol station in Phase VI was of purely accidental nature caused by the explosion of gas cylinder.