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Malaysia gas pipeline fire: Gas released could fill over half a million 14kg cooking gas cylinders
(www.straitstimes.com)
A kg of Methane emitted has a 84kg CO2 equivalent.
The estimated environmental and social costs per ton of emitted CO2 is in the range of 200€.
84 * 0.014t * 500,000 * 200€/t= 117 million €
This means that the costs to society would have exceeded 100 million € if it had not catched fire and exploded.
So, unintuitive as it may seem, the overall cost to society has probably been lower because the pipeline exploded and not just leaked without catching fire...
Nonetheless, still tragic for the people directly affected by the explosion. I read that the government at least gave money for the rebuilding of the homes.