Socialist councilors of the Chisinau Municipal Council said the December 7 accident that left half of the capital city without heat supplied through the centralized system occurred because the state of pipes is not monitored, IPN reports.

Councilor Alexandr Komarov, ex-director of the thermoelectric plant CET-2, said the communication lines are about ten years old and are in a serious state and need special attention. “CET-1 of Chisinau is for now disconnected. It normally supplies that part of the city that remained without heat and can cover a large part of Chisinau. When CET-1 is disconnected, the safety of heat supply in Chisinau is significantly lower,” he stated.

According to the councilor,  a commission should be set up to see if the enterprise is ready for winter and if the executed repair works are of an appreciate quality and to test the pressure and the equipment when the accident happened. Also, CET-1 should be urgently connected.

“During the heating season, the disconnection of the source should be banned. All these sources are conceived as one organism that works on its own circuit and the parts are interconnected,” said Alexandr Komarov. The pressure in all the old pipes of the mains should be tested in summer.

Socialist councilor Vitalie Mucan noted the consequences of the accident could have been much more serious if the temperature of the air had decreased significantly. A year ago, the Socialist group on the Chisinau Council staged a roundtable meeting where the state of the thermoelectric complex was described as critical. The participants in the meeting underlined then the mistake made by creating the colossus Termoelectrica by merging three energy companies: Termocom, CET-1 and CET-2.