The aging cast iron network of gas pipes in the Netherlands presents an irresponsibly high risk and is a matter of great concern, independent safety research board chairman Tjibbe Joustra told the Telegraaf in an interview on Friday.

‘The 10,000 kilometre network of our distribution network cannot withstand extreme pressure and heavy vibrations,’ he told the paper.
The safety research board has been warning of the dangers of the old network for the past ten years but no action has been taken. Iron has been banned for use in new gas pipes since 1994 but the old pipes have not yet been replaced.
Joustra was speaking on the 10th anniversary of an explosion in the Czaar Pieterstraat in Amsterdam where seven buildings burnt down and two people were badly hurt. The cause was subsidence of the road which cracked a gas pipe, allowing gas to seep into the foundations.
Despite the safety board’s advice to replace the gas pipe network, a similar explosion happened in another Amsterdam street in 2008.
Repeated warnings and the advice to energy providers to speed up replacement of all cast iron pipes the situation has not changed, says Joustra.