Mexico City: A leaking fuel pipeline triggered a massive blaze Friday in central Mexico, killing at least 20 people and injuring another 54, officials said.
Omar Fayad, governor of Hidalgo state, said locals at the site of the leak were scrambling to steal some of the leaking oil when at least 20 of them were burned to death.
“I’ve been told that 20 have been burned to death and another 54 burn victims being treated in hospitals,” Fayad told local ‘FaroTV’, with the blaze still raging. He said the toll may increase.
Scores of locals were collecting fuel in buckets and cans from spouting leaks, and making off with the stolen gasoline, local media showed.
“What we know is that it was an illegal fuel theft site, and that authorities were aware of it when it burned,” Fayed added.
Federal and state firefighters and ambulances run by state oil giant Pemex were headed to the area to help burn victims, the governor added.
The tragedy comes just as anti-corruption crusader President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador presses implementation of his national fuel theft prevention plan. Illegal taps of Pemex pipelines cost Mexico an estimated $3 billion in 2017.
But the government’s strategy to fight the problem has led to severe gasoline and diesel shortages across much of the country, including Mexico City, forcing people to queue for hours – sometimes days – to fuel up their vehicles.
Obrador, who took office December 1, has vowed to keep up the fight and asked Mexicans to be patient.
Meanwhile, authorities have opened 1,700 individual investigations for fuel theft, which became a massive black-market industry in this country under previous governments, involving powerful drug cartels and corrupt Pemex insiders.
Obrador’s government has shut off key pipelines until they can be fully secured and deployed the army to guard Pemex production facilities.
AFP