Oil thieves blamed for Mexican pipeline inferno

A MASSIVE oil pipeline explosion laid waste to parts of a central Mexican city, incinerating people, cars, houses and trees as gushing crude oil turned streets into flaming rivers.

At least 27 people were killed, 12 of them children, in a disaster authorities blamed on oil thieves.

The blast in San Martin Texmelucan, estimated to have affected a three-mile radius, scorched homes and cars and left metal and pavement twisted from the intense heat and in some cases burned to ash.