Following the leaking of a gas pipe due to drilling for the light rail transit (LRT) project in Cawang, East Jakarta, an official from city-owned Jakarta Propertindo (Jakpro) said the accident was unavoidable.

Jakpro president director Satya Heragandhi said on Tuesday the locations of either gas pipes or water pipes were sometimes unknown, even by the operators of the pipes themselves. Jakpro is the developer of the LRT from Kelapa Gading to Velodrome in East Jakarta.

“For instance, at a specific coordinate, the map showed there was a water pipe, but when we dug down there, we found nothing,” Satya told The Jakarta Post. “Operators sometimes just realized there were pipes or wires after we dug the land.”

Therefore, an assessment of the map is needed because “the documentation about the installment of [pipes and wires] underground is not complete,” he said.

Based on his experience, if a developer needs to dig the land to establish piles and found pipes or wires down there, the installations can be moved to other spots. The action will be taken only if the piles cannot be moved to other spots.  

On Monday night at 8:41 p.m., gas from a pipe on Jl. MT Haryono in Cawang leaked due to drilling conducted by the operator of the LRT project in the area, state-owned construction company Adhi Karya.

The gas pipe is owned by the state gas company Perusahaan Gas Negara (PGN). No casualties were reported in the accident.