by Mathieu Rabechault
ATH, Belgium, July 31 (AFP) - Belgium was in shock Saturday after a devastating accident that left at least 16 people dead in the explosion of a high-pressure gas pipeline at a busy industrial park.
But the company operating the pipeline insisted that all the legal safety and supervision requirements had been met.
Three victims remained missing and at least 115 were still in hospital, many with horrific burns, following the blast near Ath, a town of 25,000 inhabitants in French-speaking Wallonia, midway between the capital Brussels and Lille in France.
The explosion hurled some victims hundreds of meters (yards) through the air. Reports said debris had been found six kilometres (four miles) away.
About 200 people were believed to have been working in the area when the explosion occurred, sending a gigantic fireball high into the sky.
Nine bodies remained unidentified.
"All the safety rules were respected in the installation and supervision of the pipeline and in the supervision of the work in progress at the moment of the drama," Walter Peeraer, president of the executive committee of Fluxys, which runs the Belgian gas network, said at a news conference in Brussels.
Peeraer said it would be up to an inquiry to determine the cause of the blast but said that the possibility of the involvement of a third party as the cause was "a very serious lead".
The construction in progress of a factory next to the industrial park and the building some months ago of a road over the pipeline, buried at a depth of 120 centimetres (four feet), might be contributory factors, he said.
Fluxys said it had made several visits to the site during the work to give the contractor instructions as required by law.
According to the public prosecutor at Tournai it will take "several months" to determine the cause of the blast and for the moment it is "impossible to determine". An expert has already been nominated to head the inquiry.
It will have to decide whether a problem with the pipeline itself, such as corrosion or a faulty weld, was responsible or whether external factors were involved.
As flags flew at half-mast throughout the kingdom, Belgian King Albert II went to the scene, meeting local authorities in Ath, consoling grieving relatives and later visiting the accident site at nearby Ghislenghien, a hospital and the local fire station.
Five of the 65 firefighters at the station lost their lives. Residents piled bunches of flowers and tributes, one reading "we can never thank you enough" in front of the firehouse.
"Our town has paid a heavy price," said Jacqueline Leroy, as she added her contribution of flowers, adding that she wanted to show "our support for the families".
A couple of hundred meters away, a primary school was transformed into a temporary morgue. Several hundred people waited outside in silence to greet the king.
Many had relatives and friends among the victims.
"Here we are very fraternal, we are very close together," said resident Francoise Villette. Another woman, Geraldine Page confirmed that people here stick closely together in adversity. "At times like this, you can see it," she said.
Leaving the morgue where his fireman son, Pierre, 34, lay among the dead, Leon Dericq described the disaster as "a fatality, an accident. There is nothing you can do about it."
He said his son, a voluntary firefighter for the past 10 years, was called out because of a report of leaking gas.
"When he arrived at the scene, it blew up. I'm not angry. Pierre was doing his job until the very end."
Emergency services with sniffer dogs worked through the night among the rubble. The site was sealed off in order not to destroy evidence.