A gas leak occurred on Wednesday around 3:00 p.m. near the Olof Palme bridge in the Lower Town district of Charleroi, where a major urban redevelopment operation is underway.
“What’s going on with the work at Charleroi South station? An infernal noise and a gaping hole where a kind of wind, gas?”, wonders David this Wednesday afternoon via our orange Alert us button. “Police, firefighters and ambulance are present. Access is closed”, says Sara a few minutes later.
A major gas leak occurred around 3 p.m. near the Olof Palme bridge in the Ville Basse district, next to the TEC bus station. It’s a gas pipe that was pierced by a construction machine. The witnesses were able to see a column of gas escaping and hear a deafening noise.
Firefighters and police were quickly deployed to the scene. A security perimeter was also set up and neighboring buildings were evacuated as a precaution.
The leak required the stoppage of the circulation of trains and trams for around half an hour, said the spokesperson for the Charleroi fire brigade. According to the latter, the situation was able to return to order quickly thanks to the presence of valves on both sides of the bridge.
Everything quickly returned to normal, said an SNCB spokeswoman shortly after 6:00 p.m.
The operator of the gas and electricity networks Ores intervened and stopped the arrival of gas, which put an end to the evacuation operations of the nearest buildings, indicated the spokesperson for the fire brigade.