Evacuees return after Taiwan gas explosions

Source: AP-EXCITE

By GLADYS TSAI and RALPH JENNINGS

KAOHSIUNG, Taiwan (AP) — Hundreds of people who fled from gas pipeline explosions in Taiwan's second-largest city returned to their homes Friday after authorities said there was no more risk of blasts like the series that ripped apart streets overnight, killing 26 people and injuring 267.

With clean-up work underway in the 2-square kilometer (1-square mile) area, investigators were turning to the task of determining the cause of the blasts, the industrial city's worst such disaster in 16 years.

Most of the four ruptured street sections in the densely populated district of Kaohsiung were declared safe from further explosions by afternoon, a city spokesman said. A fire in a 10-meter (yard) -long section that burned through the night had also been put out.

Five explosions ripped through four streets starting around midnight Thursday, catapulting cars into the air and blasting cement rubble at passers-by, many of whom were out late at a nearby night market.

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A relative, right, of a victim in the multiple explosions from an underground gas leak is consoled at a funeral parlor in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, Friday, Aug. 1, 2014. A series of explosions about midnight Thursday and early Friday ripped through Taiwan's second-largest city, killing scores of people, Taiwan's National Fire Agency said Friday. (AP Photo) TAIWAN OUT


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