Gas blast alert

By Mara Pattison-Sowden
FEARS of an explosion in Seville last Wednesday forced the closure of the town and the evacuation of the main street after a large gas pipe was ruptured in the main street.
And the cold and wet stopped the gas dissipating quickly making it even more dangerous for the gas crews and CFA volunteers.
Delays were made worse by the constant rain and the beginning of school traffic after 3pm.
School buses were diverted and anxious parents had trouble getting around Seville to pick children up from schools.
The gas pipe was closed off just after 4pm, and Warburton Highway was opened after 5pm although contractors and CFA volunteers were still out until 8pm fixing the problem.
Contractors were boring underground on Wednesday 11 May when they hit a 180mm gas pipe on the corner of Link Road and Warburton Highway just after noon. More than 30 emergency services personnel were on the scene to block Warburton Highway from Wandin and Woori Yallock as a precaution in the wet weather, while others blocked Monbulk-Seville Road and other side streets into Seville.
The emergency also drew television media crews, including an aerial perspective of the scene via helicopter.
CFA volunteers and police stood huddled in the rain diverting vehicles through the back streets, drivers left in awe that they couldn’t “just get to the shopping centre”.
CFA district 13 operations manager Don Tomkins said it took some time to isolate the gas as the borer hadn’t escalated down to expose the pipe, and the clamps were too small. “They had to dig down to expose the pipe before it could be clamped off, cleared and re-sealed,” he said.
“There was a bit of a delay in isolating the gas because they had to bring out larger clamps from Burwood (CFA headquarters).