Safety probe after hotel blast kills seven

A top-level investigation was under way today after a huge gas blast devastated a resort hotel on Mexico’s Caribbean coast, killing seven people, including five Canadian tourists.

Two Mexican employees of the sprawling, 676-room Grand Riviera Princess hotel in Playa del Carmen, south of Cancun, were also killed in the blast, said Francisco Alor, attorney general of Quintana Roo, where the resorts are located.

Two other Canadians had severe injuries and were in a critical condition. Ten others, including two US citizens and eight Mexican hotel employees, suffered less serious wounds and were listed as stable.

Mr Alor described a horrific scene in which the floor of the building was effectively hurled through the ceiling by the force of the explosion, blowing out windows and sending fragments of aluminium window and ceiling panels over a wide area.

“Everyone said their hotel room shook. The glass at neighbouring restaurants all cracked and blew out. The tiki hut that was in the area, that was on fire,” said James Gaade of St Catharines, Ontario, who was walking on the beach when he heard a loud explosion and saw smoke coming from the resort’s premium platinum lounge.

“There was a large crater in the area, debris.”

Mr Alor said the dead included four men and a woman. Playa del Carmen civil defence director Jesus Puc said the Canadian fatalities included a nine-year-old boy.

Canada’s Foreign Affairs and International Trade department said one Canadian was confirmed killed.

“On behalf of all Canadians, the government of Canada extends its sympathies to the families and friends of those who lost their lives,” the department said.

The resort was hosting a large number of Canadians, including at least one wedding and a company break. Mr Gaade estimated that 50 to 70% of the guests at the resort were Canadians.

The blast occurred on the ground floor of one of a dozen or so buildings that make up the huge hotel and left a crater a yard deep.

The area, next to the turquoise waters of the Caribbean, was cordoned off and about 30 Mexican army soldiers stood guard around the hotel.

Mr Alor and other officials, including Mr Puc and local Red Cross director Ricardo Portugal, said initial investigations suggested the gas that exploded beneath the building was apparently not for cooking, but rather a mix of gases from a nearby swamp.

Mr Alor said investigations were under way to see if the hotel building, which sat on a concrete pad on a swampy area near the beach, had been properly constructed.

“The report suggests an accumulation of gases produced by decomposing organic material in the subsoil, and this gas produced the explosion,” he said.

“Expert examiners and civil defence personnel will have to determine if the underground space filled with swampy water that remained in this zone when the building was constructed four years ago, could have generated this type of gases.”

Officials said no gas lines were located where the blast occurred.

Pete Travers, programme director of 570 News Radio in Kitchener, Ontario, was at the hotel with a large group of Canadians from nearby Waterloo. He said all members of his group were accounted for.

Mr Travers recalled hearing a huge crash before he went down for breakfast. He stepped into the hallway to find people running from the blast site as word of an explosion rippled across the resort.

“There was quite a lot of chaos,” he said. He and other guests grabbed deck chairs from the pool area to use as makeshift stretchers.