Cold room destroyed by leaking LPG cylinder

AUSTRALIA: It is believed that a cold room explosion at a shopping mall in New South Wales, on Saturday, was caused by a leaking LPG cylinder.

Early reports on Sky News and on the local Daily Telegraph website attributed the explosion to a leaking refrigerant in the cold room being used by a cafe at Hornsby Mall. No one was hurt in the incident which smashed windows and blew debris across the loading dock behind.

However, subsequent investigations suggest that the extensive damage was caused not by refrigerant but by a leaking LPG cylinder.

“Once the surrounding building structure was declared safe, subsequent investigations during the clean up phase revealed that the cool room had in fact been used for the storage of an 9kg LP gas cylinder, superintendent Ian Krimmer of New South Wales Fire & Rescue told the Cooling Post. We now believe this is a more feasible explanation for the extent of damage that occurred.”

About 30 people were evacuated and engineers were brought in to assess the damage before the building was declared safe.

TV reports on Sky News and 7News show the extent of the damage.