Fire at Mexico Pemex gas facility kills 26
Baku, September 19 (AZERTAC). An explosion and fire killed at least 26 people at a Pemex natural gas facility in northern Mexico near the U.S. border on Tuesday, one of the deadliest accidents in the oil and gas industry in recent years.
It was the third blaze in about five weeks at state-run oil monopoly Pemex installations in Tamaulipas, a border state that has struggled to contain the menace of warring drug gangs. Pemex`s top executive said the fire appeared to be an accident.
The cause of the fire was unclear. Pemex said it was still investigating after fire fighters brought it under control on Tuesday afternoon.
"There is no evidence that the explosion was provoked, but rather that it was an accident," Pemex CEO Juan Jose Suarez Coppel told reporters after touring the site.
Illegal tapping of pipelines, often by criminal gangs, has cost Mexico hundreds of millions of dollars and sparked other major fires in the past.
Four of those killed on Tuesday were Pemex staff, and the other 22 were contract workers, the company said. Seven workers were still missing, while 28 people were hospitalized, two in serious condition, Pemex said.
The fire disrupted gas distribution in the area after Pemex turned off the pipeline, and local deliveries could be put under more serious strain if the shutdown is prolonged.
Tamaulipas has been a major battleground for drug cartels seeking to control smuggling routes into the United States, and gangs have repeatedly sought to siphon off fuel from pipelines.
The accident on Tuesday was the second big gas-related blaze to hit Latin America in the past month.
Forty-two people were killed when a gas leak led to an explosion at Venezuela`s biggest refinery on August 25. Authorities are still investigating the cause of that leak.
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