Fire officials say gas is still the most likely explanation for a deadly explosion at a Taichung department store last week. The store's owners now face responsibility for making sure the building is sound, and for illegal renovations that were underway at the time of the blast.
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00:00Firefighters make a heat map of the partly ruined
00:03Sinkong Mitsukoshi department store in Taichung.
00:06It's part of a probe into how an explosion ripped through
00:09the building's upper floors last week,
00:11killing four people and injuring dozens.
00:14Despite a lack of scorch marks or other signs of fire,
00:17investigators say they haven't changed their theory
00:20that gas was involved.
00:30Although the shock has yet to subside in central Taiwan's
00:40biggest city, and the search for evidence is far from over,
00:44it's now time for recovery.
00:46Though the building's structure was judged safe for now,
00:49the city government once guarantees it will stay sound,
00:52especially when work to clear out merchandise and other items starts.
00:56We need to provide safety, identification and identification
01:00so that we can make sure that when the next person
01:03goes in to rescue the items,
01:06they won't be affected by the objects inside
01:09or the safety of the structure.
01:11The department store's owner said it had planned to hand over
01:14such an assessment and plan on Monday.
01:17But that doesn't settle the problems the owners could face,
01:20especially as inspectors dig into illegal renovations
01:23that were going on at the time of the blast
01:25and whether there's a link between this work and the explosion.
01:28The owners say their failure to get a permit was an oversight,
01:31but there could still be legal consequences,
01:34as the investigation into what happened finds answers.
01:37Scott Huang and John Van Triest for Taiwan Plus.