Major gas leak closes town centre - Katoomba
Published: 1st February 2010
At 11.00am on Monday 1 February 2010, forty fire rescue officers from four surrounding fire stations were called to major gas leak on a construction site near the centre of the Katoomba shopping precinct. A 100mm gas main had been ruptured by construction workers and due to the risk of fire, the Fire Brigade immediately declared a 200 metre exclusion zone around the incident. This required approximately 500 shoppers and workers to be evacuated from over 30 shops including both a Coles Supermarket and a K-Mart store. The main street of Katoomba and several surrounding roads were closed to all traffic. Fire rescue officers provided water spray protection shields to the emergency gas repair crews as they worked to seal off the gas main. The incident took just on two hours to complete and after extensive air sampling the area was declared safe for evacuees to return. Workcover authorities are investigating the cause of the incident which was a repeat of a similar incident at the same location only two weeks earlier.