14 July 2012, 09:00
Balloons that blew up at rally in Armenia were pumped with methane, examination says
The experts have found that the balloons, which exploded on May 4 in Yerevan during an election campaign rally, were filled with explosive methane, said Arsen Avakyan, the head of the division for especially important cases of the Main Investigation Department of the Police of Armenia.
Methane was used to fill in around 7000 balloons. According to the examination, the compressed gas applied at gas fuelling stations was used.
So far, the police have not disclosed, in the interests of the investigation, where the person who had pumped the balloons in an apartment, had bought the compressed gas, the "News-Armenia" reports.
"About 7000 balloons brought to the rally, were filled in by a private person from ordinary gas cylinders, which are used in gas fuelling stations; and it was done not in a specially adapted room, but in an ordinary dwelling flat," said Arsen Avakyan.
According to his story, the filling in a balloon with helium costs 700 drams (about 1.7 US dollars), while methane is 2-3 times cheaper. The balloons were set on fire not by a cigarette, as supposed earlier, but by some fire, possible of a lighter, the ITAR-TASS quotes Mr Avakyan as saying.
