DUBAI // The suspected gas explosion that critically injured four teenage girls was a tragic accident and no criminal charges will be brought, police said yesterday. A Civil Defence spokesman said the case had been handed over to the Dubai Municipality and the Dubai CID, who announced that the investigation into the blast was closed and was being treated as an accident. However, details of what caused the blast remain unclear.
The girls, aged between 14 and 16, remain in induced comas at Rashid Hospital's surgical intensive care unit, where they are being treated for first and second degree burns. The explosion, which is believed to have occurred in the basement of the three-storey home in Mirdif, happened at around 9.30pm on Friday. Civil Defence, which carried out its own investigation, said the gas was ignited by an electrical discharge when one of the girls turned on a basement light.
However, a conflicting police report suggested the explosion could have been caused by a spark from a match used by one of the girls to light an oven. Madiha Housee, 29, who lives in the villa and whose sister Fatima, 16, was injured in the blast, along with friends Kim Oberholzer and Daniela Seddon, both 14, and another girl, said there was no oven, or a gas cylinder, in the basement. The kitchen, situated on the ground floor of the villa, was undamaged - as was the oven inside it.
Redha Salman, the head of the municipality's public health and safety department, said he had not been asked to investigate. Hamed al Ramsi, the landlord of the villa, said he did not know the source of the gas leak. "I never entered the house and did not see the basement the evening of the accident," he said. "But this type of accident can only be caused by a lot of gas, and I removed the gas [cylinders] outside."
Pipes bring the gas into the house from two cylinders that remain intact outside the property. Mr al Ramsi said he had spent hundreds of thousands of dirhams to move the gas supply outside all the villas he owns in Mirdif and Jumeirah. He said his only concern was for the welfare of the four young girls. "I am not sorry about the damage to the house, only to the girls' health," he said. Neighbours said they were shocked by what they witnessed on Friday. Zelda van Rooyen, a mother-of-three who found the girls on the pavement screaming in pain, was preparing to leave her villa just a few doors away and move into a hotel. She said the family were traumatised by what they saw and, with their rental contract almost up, had decided to move out early.
"We slept, all five of us, in the same room on the night it happened and we opened all the windows to keep the villa ventilated," she said. "We didn't know what the source of the gas was. If your neighbours' house blows up and there is no explanation it makes you uneasy." Another neighbour, Kamran Bigham, 52, said he and his family may no longer use gas to cook. He had been in the front garden when he heard the explosion and the girls scream. "The blouse of one of the girls was on fire so I told them to use the hose pipe to put out the fire," he said.
Yesterday, Sarah Haywood, a teacher at the Sheffield Private School, where Kim and Daniela, are pupils, said the girls were very popular and their classmates were preparing cards to be delivered to the hospital. "The whole school community is concerned about the health and well-being of both Daniela and Kim," she said. "Our thoughts are with them and we wish them a speedy and healthy recovery." Dino Oberholzer, Kim's father, said his daughter would undergo surgery tomorrow. "Her face is looking much better," he said. "The burns there are superficial. The surgery means that at least they can clean the areas 100 per cent. They cannot do the same procedure in ICU."
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