The widespread practice of storing dozens of large LPG cylinders in basements of multi-storey buildings across Dhaka has created an extreme — often overlooked — urban disaster risk, experts warned.
The recent incidents of earthquake put the residents in such buildings and their neighbours in relatively greater risks as the hazard of LPG containers adds to the prevailing risk factors, including fire.
A former chemical engineering professor at the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, Ijaz Hossain, said that all forms of gas carried inherent risks, ‘but the magnitude of danger from LPG cylinders is much higher because they contain gas under high pressure.’
He said that storing cylinders beneath residential buildings should be strictly avoided.
With the government suspending new residential piped gas connections since 2010 — briefly lifted and then suspended again in 2014 — households turned increasingly to cylindered LPG as an alternative fuel source.
Over the past decades, this dependence has rapidly grown, especially in high-rise apartments in Dhaka and elsewhere.
A visit to Azimpur, Mohammadpur, Mirpur, Farmgate, and several other neighbourhoods in the capital found basements of new buildings storing anywhere up to 80 cylinders, many of them 45kg industrial-grade containers typically used by commercial kitchens.
In many apartment buildings, apartment committees run an informal central gas supply system for the apartments in a building by connecting several large cylinders to a makeshift pipeline network.
Most households traditionally use 12kg cylinders, but building authorities often purchase 45kg cylinders because they cost less per kilogram and last longer — creating a far larger concentration of combustible gas in a confined space.
Experts warn that the scale and manner of storage dramatically increases the chances of catastrophic explosions.
‘Basements trap gas in the event of a leak. A single spark can trigger a chain explosion,’ said professor Ijaz Hossain, a safety specialist.
Professor Md Zillur Rahman, former chair of the Department of Disaster Science and Climate Resilience at the University of Dhaka, echoed the warning.
‘An LPG cylinder behaves like a bomb when it explodes. Dozens of cylinders — after an explosion — together can flatten an entire building block,’ he added.
Unlike LPG cylinders, he explained, piped gas systems such as operated by the government Titas Gas distribution company have section-wise cut-off mechanisms that reduce the probability of large explosions.
However, he also noted that authorities had not yet installed automatic shutdown systems, leaving pipeline networks still vulnerable.
Under the Department of Explosives rules, storing more than 10 gas cylinders require a formal licence and compliance with strict safety measures, including ventilation, fire-resistant enclosures, and periodic inspections.
But most apartment buildings do not hold any licence, said officials of the explosives department, adding that the government declared cylinder as explosives in 1989.
Chief Inspector of Explosives Hayat Md Feroze acknowledged the gap.
‘We are aware of the risks, but we operate with only 109 staff, including 15 officials, across the entire country,’ he said.
‘We simply cannot inspect thousands of buildings,’ he added.
He also revealed that the department lacks its own testing laboratory for cylinder quality verification.
‘We rely on BUET resources for testing, and we have already flagged illegally manufactured cylinders to the authorities. We do not have magistracy power to take action directly,’ he said.
Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha chief town planner Md Ashraful Islam said that Rajuk monitored the land use plan and the structural design where these issues were not included.
According to the Fire Service and Civil Defence, at least 500 cylinder-related explosions have been recorded in the past five years, killing more than 100 people and injuring hundreds more.
One of the deadliest incidents occurred in Gazipur in March 2024, where 16 people died when multiple cylinders exploded inside a building.
In Narayanganj and Chattogram, repeated blasts in informal workshops, homes and eateries have resulted in scores of casualties, highlighting systemic negligence in the handling of LPG cylinders.
According to Disaster Forum member secretary Gawher Nayeem Wahra, a gas cylinder increases risks during an earthquake or fire.
‘The cylinders are stored like stacked bombs,’ he said.
One explosion will trigger others and if 40 or 50 cylinders explode simultaneously, the explosion will devastate not just a building but an entire neighbourhood, he commented.
According to him, all live utility services — gas, electricity, water lines — pose risks because they are poorly planned and poorly managed in the rapidly growing cities, including Dhaka.
Bangladesh suspended new household pipeline gas connections in 2010, reinstated them briefly, and then halted them again permanently in 2014. Ever since, the majority of new residential and commercial buildings have relied on LPG cylinders.
The absence of a clear regulatory framework for high-rise building cylinder storage, combined with poor enforcement capacity, has turned this temporary solution into a long-term hazard.
Urban planners and disaster specialists warn that Dhaka’s unregulated use of LPG cylinders — especially in dense apartment clusters — now represents one of the city’s most grave risks.
With dozens — often hundreds — of cylinders unsafely stored in basements, informal pipelines running through staircases, no licensing, and almost no inspection capacity, it is ‘only a matter of time’ before a major tragedy strikes, say experts.