A huge explosion has rocked a Damascus suburb area on Wednesday evening (local), in what could be the second act of suspected sabotage against natural gas infrastructure in just a few days.
“A gas pipeline exploded Wednesday near the Tishreen power station in Syria’s Eastern Ghouta area in the Damascus countryside,“ Alikhbariah TV reported.
According to more per regional sources, “It said the loud blast heard in Eastern Ghouta was caused by the pipeline explosion near the power station.”
Unconfirmed images are already widely circulating…
Syria had reported at least two acts of major sabotage against its gas infrastructure in the prior six weeks.
One of these events happened Monday, and saw a fire rage out of control for many hours at a gas pipeline between al-Shola and Deir Ezzor following a mystery explosion.
For several years stretching through much of the last decade, Syrian cities – including the capital – have suffered intermittent and long power outages. It was especially during the tail-end of the proxy war to oust Assad that lack of fuel and electricity became a prolonged crisis.
Damascus residents, for example, often had a mere one hour of electricity in their homes per day – if at all. Entire remote villages and towns simply proceeded with daily life amid a total and persistent blackout.
This was to a large degree the result of a US-led sanctions war which in effect strangled the population. US troops had even for years directly occupied Syria’s eastern oil and gas fields, which had been crucial for meeting domestic energy needs.
