At Least 20 People Killed In Pipeline Explosion In Mexico

[admin]

 

[Guest Nicole SG]

MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s president vowed on Saturday to redouble his fight against an epidemic of chronic fuel theft after thieves punctured a pipeline north of Mexico City, causing an explosion that killed at least 66 people and injured 76 others.

The blast underscored the deadly perils of the fuel-theft racket, which has cost the government billions of dollars a year and has been the target of a weekslong crackdown by the administration of Mexico’s new president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

“Although it hurts a lot, we have to continue with the plan to end fuel theft,” Mr. López Obrador said during a news conference at the presidential palace in Mexico City. “We will not stop. We will eradicate this.”

The explosion, which occurred Friday night along a pipeline in a rural part of the state of Hidalgo, was particularly deadly because the promise of free gasoline had drawn hundreds of residents to the breach in the pipeline.

Firefighters work to extinguish the blaze in Hidalgo State in Mexico on Friday night.CreditFrancisco Villeda/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/19/world/americas/hidalgo-explosion-mexico-pipeline.html