Glorietta mall owner Ayala Land Inc. (ALI) disputed anew initial police findings of gas leak explosion at the upscale shopping mall last month, saying it could not have been an accident.

ALI president Jaime Ayala announced before a news conference yesterday the findings of local and foreign experts hired by his firm which all debunked the police conclusion that the Oct. 19 blast at Glorietta 2 which killed 11 people and injured scores of others was caused by negligence.

“We don’t think negligence is relevant with respect to this incident,” Ayala said.

Ayala called on the Philippine National Police (PNP) to be more circumspect and look at all possible angles including terrorism.

“It is highly unlikely that methane would be produced in the Glorietta 2 basement sump pits because the conditions for the production of methane in substantial quantities were not present,” he said.

Ayala presided a three-dimensional presentation of the findings made by Dr. Stephen Ethridge, a British specialist on waste water and effluent treatment, and Burgoynes, an international consulting firm specializing in the forensic investigation of fires.

Ayala said the findings pointed out methane and biogas leakage could not have caused the explosion since the conditions to ignite the gaseous mixture to make it explode were not achieved.

“Accumulation of biogas in the basement is unlikely because it would have vented via the large open stairwell leading to the delivery bay,” the findings said.

“It is unlikely that biogas was present in the basement since personnel working in the basement a day before the incident did not smell hydrogen sulfide,” it added.

Ayala told newsmen that “the accumulation of biogas in the basement was not feasible as it was 20 percent less dense than the air making it less likely for a gas lighter than air to have vented via the open stairwell.”

PNP investigators have said the explosion was an accident and not a bomb blast as initially feared.

Experts from Australia, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Israel have all backed the PNP findings, which blamed a mixture of gases from a malfunctioning septic tank and a diesel tank in the basement of the mall.

Ayala, however, insisted the damage, which led to the partial shutdown of the mall, was too substantial to have been caused by a gas build-up.

“We could not say conclusively whether or not there is a bomb crater,” he said.

Asked about reports that the explosion apparently originated from the fuel tank used to store diesel for emergency purposes during power outages, Ayala said there were no “reports or observations by maintenance personnel of any aberrations to the diesel tank.”

“The diesel tank suffered an internal over-pressure during the incident which resulted in the roof of the tank deforming and tearing along the weld,” the findings further noted.

Ayala added the experts also came out with the conclusion that micro-organism takes a long time to grow and generate biogas in an undisturbed condition and multiply to quantities sufficient to cause such a massive explosion.

“The length of time that waste water stayed in the basement sump pits is not sufficient for this process to take place, as the water in the pits was discharged several times a day,” he said.

According to Ayala, the experts hired by the firm noted the twisting of steel reinforcements in the building was consistent with damage usually caused by a bomb.

Ayala also noted that his experts had not been given complete access to the basement of the mall where police claimed the blast originated.  – With AFP