A ruptured gasoline pipeline exploded Friday evening in Central Mexico leading to at least 85 reported casualties so far, officials said Monday. Another 66 injured including minors are currently receiving treatment, informed Mexico’s Secretary of Health Jorge Alcocer, while 76 people were still missing, according to Hidalgo state Governor Omar Fayad’s tweet on Saturday, January 19.
The explosion occurred in the rural town of Tlahuelilpan in the state of Hidalgo, approximately 100 north of Mexico City and 13 kilometres from the state-run Tula refinery. The fire that raged after the pipeline exploded was extinguished on Sunday, January 20, following which rescue teams began to recover bodies.
Residents in the immediate vicinity of the pipeline, which runs from Tuxpan to Tula, have been evacuated, state-run oil company Pemex said. The incident has piped up the pressure on the Mexican government to curb illegal pipeline tap, a problem that is believed to have cost the country billions of dollars and led to Friday’s explosion.
A menace and a hazard
Hidalgo state police said the leak was first reported at approximately 5 PM local time followed by the explosion two hours later. An investigation into the cause of the blast has been launched, state general prosecutor Alejandro Gertz Manero informed, adding that static electricity from the synthetic clothing of people around the pipeline is the “preliminary belief.”
oil pipeline explosion rocks #Tlalhuelilpan #Mexico 73 people killed pic.twitter.com/M6vVEy2DQt Aijaz (@anaijaz) January 20, 2019
According to news reports, the pipeline had been damaged and patched a lot of times. Locals say the gasoline leak was manageable at first, “emitting a tame fountain of fuel” after which the government shut down the line of supply. When it returned to service after nearly four weeks, an impatient fuel collector punctured the line again, spraying gasoline 20 feet into the air.
Scores of Mexicans from the nearby community of 20,000 were reportedly gathered around the spigot to collect some free fuel when it exploded Friday. Photographic and evidence on social media point to residents of Tlahuelilpan, some of whom were witnesses to the explosion and subsequently interviewed on Sunday, rejoicing around the geyser of fuel on Friday evening. Many can be seen collecting the fuel in buckets, plastic jugs and garbage bins, with their faces covered with bandanas and some even accompanied by children.
Response from authorities
The government said soldiers reportedly reached the scene after Pemex detected the illegal tap but failed to secure the area in time.
Officials told USA Today the soldiers were outnumbered and their instructions were to not intervene, after the locals began to pelt them with stones and swung sticks to them away. At some point, there were too many people there, and the army and military personnel withdrew to avoid problems, Public Security Minister Alfonso Durazo told the local media. It was just as they were withdrawing that the explosion occurred.
What happened here should serve as an example for the whole nation to unite behind the fight that the president is carrying out against this ill, municipal health director Jorge Aguilar Lopez was reported as saying by Global News. Coming on the same day as another pipeline explosion in the neighbouring state of Queretaro, also due to oil theft, the government has renewed its effort to crack down on the menace.
Governor Fayad urged the community not to steal gasoline, while the Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador visited Tlahuelilpan and met with officials at a command , announcing that pipelines will be monitored to avoid theft.
The dry spell
According to some news reports, the involvement of gangs deters the law enforcement authorities from taking stringent action against fuel thieves.
The closure of key pipelines in an effort to end fuel theft is believed to have cost the nation $3 billion in 2018. Meanwhile, gas stations in the country’s capital and several key states are going through a dry spell for the last two weeks.
“To guarantee that there are no fuel shortages, it has been fundamental the participation of the armed forces, the military, marines federal police,” Obrador said last weekend, adding, “If necessary, we will re-enforce the surveillance strategy. Another method will be the increase fuel transportation capacity.” He also announced that his administration is currently working to acquire and buy fuel tanks to increase fuel by 25%. Facing an uphill battle ahead, this will be Obrador’s first real challenge since he assumed power after a historic victory for the left in 2018.
Prarthana Mitra is a staff writer at Qrius