MEXICO CITY: Nearly 60 people were wounded, 19 gravely, when a gas truck exploded in Mexico City on Wednesday causing widespread damage, municipal officials said.
The vehicle blew up on a bridge in the populous Iztapalapa district in the capital’s east, leaving 19 people with second- and third-degree burns, civil protection official Myriam Urzua said.
No fatalities have been reported.
Images distributed on television and social networks show the moment of the powerful explosion.
People can be seen with what appear to be serious burns, while others near the disaster zone fled the fast-spreading flames that were later brought under control by firefighters.
Several other vehicles were damaged in the explosion, the causes of which are not yet known.
Images showed the burning truck, which was transporting 49,500 liters of gas, overturned on the road.
The smoke from the inferno reached a nearby trolleybus station, one of the main modes of transport in the city of 9.2 million inhabitants.
Iztapalapa is home to 1.8 million of those — one of the most populated districts in the country.
Mexico is no stranger to disasters linked to fuel trucks and hydrocarbon infrastructure.
The worst occurred in January 2019, when a fire and subsequent explosion on a pipeline being looted killed 137 people in the town of Tlahuelilpan, in the central state of Hidalgo – AFP
