Fifteen reported dead after fuel line explodes

A fuel line exploded along a highway in eastern Mexico, injuring scores of people and killing several, according to officials in the area.

Fifteen people died in the explosion, said Pedro Mejilla, shift chief for the federal highway police in Orizaba, one of numerous agencies trying to rescue the injured.

But Red Cross commander Gerardo Sanz in the same city, about 10 miles east of the explosion, said that while he had heard reports of deaths, they were unconfirmed.

“Dozens and dozens” were injured, Mejilla said.

Authorities agreed that the explosion occurred along a gas or fuel line near the town of Maltrata in a mountainous area about 115 miles south east of Mexico City, although there were varying accounts of what caused it: a truck crash, an avalanche or a storm-swollen river.

Mejilla said it occurred near several roadside restaurants and he said several tractor-trailer rigs and small buildings were burned.

He said the incident, which occurred at about 8pm local time yesterday, forced the main Mexico City-Veracruz expressway to close for more than two hours.

Sanz said the terrain made radio communication with rescuers difficult.

Jorge Garcia Perez, director-general of the Red Cross for the city of Cordoba, said his agency had sent several ambulances 25 miles west to the explosion site.

“It seems there are about 100 injured, 15 of them seriously,” he said by telephone.

A spokeswoman for the Veracruz state government, Silvia Lara, said officials there did not yet have details of the incident but that they had sent a helicopter to the scene.