Business owners scramble after shops destroyed in Coquitlam explosion

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Small-business owners in a Coquitlam strip mall that was devastated by an apparent explosion and fire anxiously waited to find out Monday when they could go in and survey the aftermath.

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“We don’t know how big the damage is,” said Sean Han, the owner of Better Immigration Consulting, an immigration consulting firm on the second storey of the two-storey strip mall.

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Han heard about the Sunday morning fire from a friend who owns a restaurant downstairs. His friend learned about the fire from someone else, who had passed by the burning building at 341 North Rd.

“I went there at 7:50 a.m.,” said Han, who lives about a 30-minute drive away. He said firefighters were already there when he arrived.

The blast blew out the entire facade of the mall.

Store awnings and signage crumpled to the ground, exposing twisted metal piping and wooden framing.

Mid-afternoon Monday Han was still not sure the extent of the damage or whether the fire sprinklers went off. Han said Coquitlam RCMP couldn’t tell him when he would be allowed back into his office to assess the damage.

“They didn’t give me any date,” he said.

There were no injuries or victims, according to Coquitlam Fire and Rescue. Sandro Bonifazi, assistant chief with Coquitlam Fire and Rescue Services, told CTV on Sunday there might have been an explosion in one of the units.

Coquitlam RCMP Const. John Graham told Postmedia on Sunday that the fire department called its officers shortly before 6:30 a.m. about a fire.

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Graham said at the time it was too early to speculate about whether the fire was caused by an explosion, or whether materials inside one of the businesses may have ignited.

“There are no updates on the incident at this time and we continue to investigate,” Graham said on Monday.

The strip mall houses several businesses, including an optometry clinic, restaurants, a karaoke bar, and a café.

MJ Kim, owner of Hansem Travel, said he had to scramble to Costco to buy three laptops for himself and staff to keep operations running Monday.

“We have to take care of our customers,” he said. “We cannot close.”

Kim said his landlord texted him Sunday morning to alert him that there had been a fire at the strip mall where he has operated his travel business for more than a decade.

When he arrived on the scene, the severity of the damage sunk in.

“It’s a crazy surprise, but there’s nothing I can do.”

Many of the businesses in the strip mall and in the immediate area are owned by Korean Canadians — there’s an H Mart Korean grocer just down the road — and owners have been checking in on one another, Kim said.

“For me I can work from home, with limited access. But for them it’s 100 per cent closed,” he said of some of the other businesses.

Han said all the laptops he used for his business were in the building at the time of the fire and he didn’t know if he would need to buy new equipment or not.

“I can’t do business now,” Han said. “I can’t work.”

With files from Joe Ruttle, Douglas Quan and The Canadian Press

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