WHEATLEY, Ontario — Electricity is cut off. And officials are frantically working to unravel the grim mystery of what exactly caused a gas explosion last August in Wheatley, Ontario — and how to prevent another explosion from happening. More than four months after the blast shuttered Wheatley’s downtown and injured 20 of the town’s 2,900 residents, the authorities still don’t know where the gas leak came from, or why it happened. Residents and local officials are examining the risks associated with the town’s history as a site of 19th-century gas wells, vestiges of the area’s oil and gas industry. Many are now grappling with whether the center of the town, which was formally recognized in 1865, should be permanently abandoned.

Source: thestar January 11, 2022 22:49 UTC