Dubai: Dubai’s Al Khail Gate community has enforced a ban on using cooking gas inside its premises almost a month after a deadly blast due to gas leakage in one of its apartments last month.
An elderly Indian woman died while her daughter was critically injured in the explosion that ripped through their fifth-floor apartment in Phase 1 of the community on August 24. The blast destroyed the walls of the flat and partially damaged two other apartments in the same building as well as an adjacent building.
Five days later, another fire in a seventh-floor apartment in Phase 2 of the community had resulted in minor damage and evacuation of residents.
On Wednesday night, the community’s developer — Dubai Properties — put up notices in all buildings across both phases asking tenants to immediately stop using cooking gas and remove gas cylinders.
“We remind you that the use of gas or gas cylinders on the premises or elsewhere in the Al Khail Gate development is strictly prohibited as it is contrary to the contract and to the rules and regulations of Dubai Civil Defence. Please immediately remove any gas cylinders. If you fail to do so, please be aware that you will be responsible for any damage or loss that may be caused, or compensation that may be claimed, as a result of your failure to comply with the contract,” read the notice.
Tenants who spoke to Gulf News said the notice was a shocker to them. Many said they had not read any such clause in the contract that runs into dozens of pages while some said an annexure in the latest contracts had mentioned a prohibition on using gas cylinders in the community.
Tenants said Phase 2 apartments have been provided with an outlet for electric stoves while Phase 1 apartments do not even have them.
“Whether it is there in the contract or not, this ban is something that the management had not enforced all these years. They are very well aware that a majority of the tenants use gas cylinders and almost all gas suppliers deliver cylinders inside the community. They had not told us anything about it from the beginning,” said Ahmed Z., a Pakistani expatriate living in Phase 2 for six years.
Roshni S.P, an Indian expatriate, said she had heard about the management raising the issue of using gas cylinders in the past few months. “I heard some people were even fined. So, we bought an induction cooker before we went for renewing our contract.”
Tenants raised the concern of switching to electric cookers which will see their power bills shoot up. “We have already started paying more for the district cooling after they installed the meters saying it will reduce the bills. If we have to switch to electric cooking, we will end up paying thousands of dirhams more for that also,” lamented one tenant who did not wish to be named.
Dubai Properties was not immediately available for comments.
