Rakesh George nev­er thought the sto­ries he heard about leak­ing do­mes­tic gas tanks would one day be­come his own tragedy. Now, af­ter los­ing his wife, su­per­mar­ket su­per­vi­sor Ria George, weeks af­ter suf­fer­ing burns dur­ing an ex­plo­sion in their kitchen, he wants the gas com­pa­ny to take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

Forty-sev­en-year-old Ria had been ward­ed at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal since the in­ci­dent, and on Sat­ur­day passed away around 11 am.

Re­call­ing the fate­ful day in Au­gust, he said that around 5 am, his wife woke up to pre­pare lunch for them to take to work. They both worked at MS Food City Su­per­mar­ket.

He re­called that when they went to bed that night, they did not de­tect any gas leak­ing from the tank. How­ev­er, he said that morn­ing she smelled gas in the kitchen.

“She pulled out the tank from un­der­neath and fixed back the gas head. There was a cloth on it. The gas man say any­time we have that prob­lem, take out the rub­ber and flip it over, and we put that back, not know­ing the gas al­ready leak. So, when she scratch and light, boom.”

George, who was in bed, rushed to the kitchen.

“I pull she out and my sis­ter-in-law came. We run the hose. We put ice wa­ter on her ... every­thing was peel­ing and com­ing out. They gave me a liq­uid to pour on her hand.”

He said she was con­scious when the am­bu­lance left with her. He said the PVC ceil­ing, elec­tri­cal wiring, cur­tain, cup­board doors, win­dows, and sink were dam­aged by the force and heat of the ex­plo­sion.

George said his wife spent five days in a co­ma in the In­ten­sive Care Unit (ICU), then she was trans­ferred to the Burns Unit.

“She was in a right state of mind and every­thing. Her wounds were heal­ing, her chest and lungs cleared up. She spent about three weeks in the burns ward, then it got more se­ri­ous, and they moved her to a dif­fer­ent ICU.”

While he is await­ing an au­top­sy to de­ter­mine the ex­act cause of death, the wid­ow­er be­lieves it could have been an in­fec­tion. He has not for­mal­ly re­port­ed the ex­plo­sion to Na­tion­al Pe­tro­le­um (NP) Mar­ket­ing Com­pa­ny but hopes the com­pa­ny will see the me­dia re­ports and “do some­thing about it.”

He claimed there were sev­er­al un­re­port­ed cas­es of fires caused by leak­ing gas tanks.

“They just need to be more se­ri­ous and take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for their ac­tions. The gas com­pa­ny needs to ac­cept re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and do bet­ter so this will not hap­pen again. I do not know if it is the tank, or if it is a lighter gas or what, but the com­pa­ny needs to take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for it. It take my wife, and it could hap­pen to any­one else. There is noth­ing we can say or do to get her back.”

George said he and his wife had been mar­ried for 14 years and were in­sep­a­ra­ble. He de­scribed her as his pil­lar.

“I do not know how to cope with this,” he lament­ed as tears rolled down his cheeks.

When con­tact­ed, NP cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions of­fi­cer Michelle Sa­landy said the com­pa­ny was not aware of the in­ci­dent as it had not re­ceived any re­port.

Sa­landy ad­vised George to con­tact the com­pa­ny.

Sim­i­lar in­ci­dents in 2025

En­ter­prise- ex­plod­ing gas tank at house — ear­ly March

Care­nage - leak­ing LPG tank caused house fire — March 10

Clax­ton Bay - gas tank ex­plod­ed, woman lat­er died on June 24