An explosion damaged the Amber Grid gas pipeline, which connects the Baltic countries with Poland, in northern Lithuania, not far from the Latvian border, on Friday, causing no casualties.
According to Lithuanian firefighters, the flames reached 50 meters in height and threatened the village of Valakeliai, near the town of Pasvalys. The town was temporarily evacuated.
“Around 5:00 p.m. (3:00 p.m. GMT), an explosion occurred at the Amber Grid gas pipeline in the Pasvalys district. According to initial data, no one was injured,” according to the statement from the Amber Grid group.
Flames up to 50 meters high
The explosion in one of the two gas pipelines, the damaged section of which was built in 1978, occurred far from residential buildings, about five kilometers from Pasvalys, according to the operator.
A fire official said that “the fire, which was about 50 meters high at its peak, had started to subside.”
In a press release posted on the Facebook account of the Pasvalys district authorities, “the gas pipeline fire was extinguished” at night. “The evacuees can return to their place of residence, by decision of the chief of relief operations,” according to this text.
“Sabotage cannot be excluded”
Nemunas Biknius, chief executive of Amber Grid, said in the statement that his group “immediately began to investigate the circumstances of the incident and to ensure gas supplies to consumers.”
“In the immediate future, we have not observed any malicious action” linked to this explosion, but “the investigation will cover all possible scenarios,” he added to reporters.
According to Latvian Climate and Energy Minister Raimonds Cudars, quoted by the Baltic news agency BNS, the gas pipeline explosion in Lithuania has so far not caused any problems with the natural gas supply in Latvia.
However, “the gas pipeline explosion in Lithuania must be carefully investigated (and) even sabotage cannot be ruled out,” Latvian Defense Minister Artis Pabriks tweeted.
No more Russian gas imports from June 2022
The group said the pipeline where the fire broke out was used to supply gas to northern Lithuania and transport it to neighboring Latvia.
Since June 2022, Lithuania has been banned from importing Russian gas, in the context of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
After regaining its independence from the Soviet Union in 1990, Lithuania was heavily dependent on Russian gas, until the commissioning in 2014 of an LNG terminal in Klaipeda on the Baltic Sea, then in 2022 that of a new gas pipeline linking the three Baltic States with the European gas network, via Poland.
In September, explosions hit the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines, linking Russia and Germany under the Baltic Sea, built to transport Russian gas to Europe. According to the Swedish prosecutor’s office, these explosions amount to sabotage.
Source: BFM TV
