The explosion in Harlem that left at least six dead and dozens injured puts focus on the aging infrastructure of New York City.
The blast, which was caused due to a gas leak, Wednesday, reduced two five-storey buildings into a pile of rubble. Nine are reported missing as fire-fighters continue to search the debris and it is feared that the number of casualties might go up.
There were no warning signs to take precautionary actions before the incident happened. "This is a tragedy of the worst kind because there was no indication in time to save people," said Mayor Bill de Blasio, saying that the search "will take quite a bit of time," reports The New York Times.
Center for an Urban Future released a report recently drawing attention to New York City's old infrastructure. The study shows the gas mains that are 6,300 miles-long throughout the NYC are 56 years old and 60 percent of these are made of outdated steel or cast iron that will easily give up on cracks and subsequent leaks.
Consolidated Edison or Con Ed, the largest investor-owned company in the U.S., lost over 2 percent of the gas it provides to customers due to the constant leaks, the reports states. "Simply put, too much of the city's essential infrastructure remains stuck in the 20th Century - a problem for a city positioning itself to compete with other global cities in today's 21st Century economy," the report points out.
This does not come as a surprise as several tenants in the Harlem buildings detected a gas like odor the previous night of the explosion.
Not only New York City, Utah and Washington D.C. also suffer from gas leaks problem due to old infrastructure. Utah's natural gas provider Questar Corporation spokesman Darren Shepard said a major renovation to the state's gas infrastructure was in the pipeline .
"We're spending $55 million a year for these pipeline upgrades," Shepard said, reports the Standard-Examiner. He further added that the first major upgrade of the gas pipes was done in 1970s when the company, then known as Mountain Fuel Supply, strengthened several cast iron pipes that were initially installed in the early 20th century.
A recent research by thee Duke and Boston University found most of Washington D.C.'s gas lines to be leaking. They found staggering 5,893 city's buried gas mains that were oozing so much methane that it could be detected from the street. Furthermore, the researchers stated that several sites had possible threat of explosions.
Adding to the woes, The Department of Transportation rated over 30 percent of roads in New York to be in fair or poor condition; this includes Manhattan (43 percent) and Staten Island (40 percent). Over 160 bridges in the city were built more than a century ago and 47 percent of them were put under 'fractural critical' category, as of 2012. This means that these bridges could collapse any time, reports the NY Daily News.
