Firefighters to run safety checks on stranded tankers.

An evaluation to verify the safety conditions currently maintained by tanker trucks that are stranded at various points on the Inter-American highway in the east of the province of Chiriquí that contain propane and butane gas, will be carried out by the Corps of Panama Firefighters.

Videos circulating on social networks of the concern that the drivers of articulated vehicles maintain, indicating that the pressure and high temperatures they transport could cause an emergency of greater magnitudes reports TVN.

According to lieutenant-colonel Ángel Delgado of the Panama Fire Department, ,  in coordination with personnel from the National Civil Protection System (Sinaproc), they will proceed to carry out this inspection of the different trucks.

According to Delgado, these trucks have a security system, which must comply with a series of regulations and at the same time are designed with a security system for the safe transportation of cargo.

However, when receiving a high temperature or receiving heat waves, whether from direct flame or from the environment, there could be some type of pressure rise and some safety measures would have to be developed.

One of these measures involves the release of the safety valves to relieve the pressures, a procedure that must be done very carefully since it is part of the cargo and remember that it is gas, so it is necessary to prevent this could enter with a source of open flame that could cause a fire or even explosion.

Another option that could be applied is to spray the trucks with water to cool the load.

Currently stranded on the Inter-American highway, there are about 25 tankers waiting to transport this cargo to provide this product to the residents of the province of Chiriquí, who suffer from shortages due to road blockades.

The firefighters published on their social networks that on the Inter-American highway, where the closure is located between Silimín and San Félix, they managed to talk with the people who maintain the blockade and the danger they ran with the liquefied gas tankers so close was explained to them. The protesters allowed the trucks to pass.