United Cities Gas Co.’s two-inch diameter, 7.2 MMcf per hour gasline that connects with a town border station in Wytheville, VAexploded Sunday morning, destroying a house and business. No onewas killed in the accident, but 1,600 residents of Wytheville hadtheir heat cut off and some have not had it restored. The cause ofthe fire is still under investigation.

“We are doing all we can. Its been really busy around here,”said United Cities’ spokesman Dan Lindsey. “We have a temporarystation up and running and we’ve re-established gas into thesystem. About two-thirds of the city residents have their gas back.We’re hoping the rest will have it back by the end of tonight.”

Wytheville is located 65 miles west of Roanoke, VA. Two largerpipelines, East Tennessee Natural Gas and Virginia Gas, connect tothe station that exploded. United Cities said that neither pipelinewas affected by the accident and that gas flowing into the stationwas shut off quickly. The owner of the house was not present at thetime of the explosion. A motorcycle shop also was destroyed.Lindsey said that it took a couple of hours to control the fire.

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