KOHAT: A house was razed to the ground and an elderly woman received serious burn injuries in a gas leak blast in Hayat Shaheed Colony here in the wee hours of Saturday.

House owner Hassan Khan told reporters that SNGPL was to be blamed for the incident as gas supply was turned on and off without any schedule. He said it was the third incident in his locality.

He said the blast occurred when a family member awoke at 3am and tried to light up a gas heater. He added that children remained unscathed as they were asleep in another room.

He said the injured woman had been referred to a Peshawar hospital in serious condition.

He appealed to the SNGPL officials to make announcements prior to suspending or restoring the gas supply to avoid such incidents. He said that he was a poor man and had spent all his savings on the construction of the house.

He asked the government to help him reconstruct it as his family had been forced to live in a tent to protect itself from severe cold.

Meanwhile, federal state minister Sheharyar Afridi has said that work on the newly-sanctioned 132KV grid station would be started soon after completion of paperwork.

Talking to mediapersons here on Saturday, he said that the Pesco chief designer and chief engineers construction and planning had visited the selected site for the grid station.

The minister final report of land selection and fulfillment of other necessary obligations and requirements would be ready soon.

He said that the new grid would resolve the longstanding problems of loadshedding and low voltage in Urban 6, Jarma, Kharmato, Surgul, Shahpur, Sumari, Dhdoda and Mandori areas.

Mr Afridi said that the grid had been approved by federal energy minister Umer Ayub Khan.

Published in Dawn, January 10th, 2021