Essen.
In Essen-Bergerhausen, an excavator had damaged a high-pressure gas line. Gas escaped and local residents were evacuated. That’s how the mission went.
There was a risk of explosion on Tuesday afternoon in Bergerhausen: according to the fire brigade, an excavator had an excavator in the area of the artwork street/Westfalen street shortly after 4 p.m high pressure gas line damaged, gas leaked. The surrounding streets were closed, 40 buildings in the area were cleared, and around 80 people had to leave their homes. At around 6 p.m. the all-clear was given: the leak had been closed. An hour later, those affected were able to return to their homes, and the streets were gradually reopened.
In the meantime, the affected residents were able to stay in a bus provided by the Ruhrbahn on Westfalenstraße. Citizens were asked to go to a restaurant across the street. There they were provided with drinks and waited for further information.
The fire brigade was on site because of the risk of explosion
“There was a real danger to life and limb, we were really lucky,” said fire department spokesman Christoph Risse. Around 80 emergency services were on site because there was a risk of explosion. The fire brigade had asked the residents via loudspeaker announcement to close windows and doors, not to use lighters or matches and to leave the apartments.
A warning was also about Cell Broadcast sent to cellphones. The affected line with a diameter of 50 centimeters was a line from the Firma OGE (Open Grid Europe). According to their spokesman, the cause of the leak is not yet known, but there is a suspicion that it has to do with the construction work taking place in the area. At 14 bar, the pressure on the pipeline was rather low for a long-distance pipeline.
After about two hours, the gas had mixed with the circulating air
The fact that the escaping natural gas, unlike in low-pressure lines, was not mixed with an odorant and was therefore odorless, made things more difficult for the emergency services. “So the typical smell of ‘rotten eggs’ was missing,” explains the fire department spokesman. In order to be able to carry out as many measurements as possible, Stadtwerke Essen supported the fire brigade with additional measuring devices.
The gas pipeline was sealed off (“closed off”) over a length of eleven kilometers so that the gas could flow out in the affected section. Cracks: “After about two hours, the gas had escaped and mixed with the surrounding air, so that there was no longer any danger.”
The OGE spokesman said he did not know whether the damage had led to supply problems in the city’s gas network. The investigation into the incident will probably take some time.
The roadblocks were lifted around 7 p.m
Around 4 p.m., citizens in the area of the art worker street/Dinnendahl street/Kersebaum street were surprised by the noise that could be heard from the direction of Siepental. Although it had been quite loud recently due to the construction work, the current noise level was very unusual, residents worried. For some it sounded like a jet fighter taking off, for others like a truck dumping stones.
The former CDU district representative Oliver Ottmannthe next to the old school on the artisan street lives and his mother were also affected. They, too, had heard the loud noise. A gray cloud had risen and the smell of gas could be perceived. He tried to call the fire department but couldn’t get through, which may have been due to the lines being overloaded.
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