Monday, 27 March 2006
Accidental Ammonia Gas Leak Incident at Pasir Panjang Wholesale Centre

On Saturday, 25 March 2006 at 05:18 am, the SCDF was alerted to a case of gas leakage at the cold rooms in Pasir Panjang Wholesale Centre.

The SCDF responded with a fire engine and 1 Red Rhino and 5 supporting appliances. Upon arrival at incident site within 7 minutes of call, the SCDF personnel used the chemical detectors and detected the presence of ammonia gas. The affected building is single storey building measuring about 100m by 20m. The building houses 6 cold rooms which were further sub-divided into smaller compartments. Further detection and investigation narrowed the presence of the leakage to one of the sub-rooms and confirmed that ammonia gas, which was use to chill the room was leaking from a tear in the piping.

The incident was contained by SCDF shutting down the main valve to prevent further leakage and dispersing the ammonia vapour in the air using water mist gun and blowers. The operation (Detection, mitigation, ventilation process) took about 2 hours. The contractor had been called in to replace the faulty piping and as at 11am SCDF is still standing by at the incident site to monitor the situation.

Nobody was injured in the incident.