POLICE today said the explosion at a Kuching mall, which killed three people and injured 41 others yesterday, is not linked to terrorism.

“There is no element of terrorism. No element of militancy,” Sarawak police commissioner Mohd Dzuraidi Ibrahim said today at the site of the blast at City One mega mall.

He reiterated the authorities’ earlier findings that it was a workplace accident.

Investigations into the cause of the blast are ongoing jointly with the Fire and Rescue Services Department and Department of Safety and Occupational Health (DOSH), he said.

Dzuraidi said a post-mortem had been conducted on two of the three fatal victims and the third post-mortem will be done later today.

The police chief said police were treating the deaths as “sudden death” but that could change if the  investigation found evidence of negligence.

State fire chief Khiruddin Drahman, who was also present, said the blast pattern as seen from CCTV footage and the victims’ injuries was consistent with that of a gas explosion

“Our early assessment is a gas leak. We have collected samples of (the mall’s LPG) gas to be analysed in our forensic lab.”

Khiruddin said he was confident the hypothesis would be validated by another forensic team flying in from Putrajaya later today.

He said there had been no warning of a leak as the gas was “odourless and colourless”.

“Industrial LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) is unlike domestic LPG.

“That was why no one detected the build up of gas in the outlet.”

State Department of Safety and Occupational Health (DOSH) Nor Halim Hassan said the department’s investigation team was focused on workplace safety and were checking if safety laws were violated. – December 5, 2018.

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