TLAHUELILPAN, Mexico (AP) — Forensic experts attempted to separate and count charred heaps of corpses in central Mexico on Saturday after a massive fireball erupted at an illegal pipeline tap, killing at least 66 people. More than 85 other people on Saturday were listed as missing as relatives of the deceased and onlookers gathered around the scene of carnage.
Just a few feet from where the pipeline passed through an alfalfa field, the dead seem to have fallen in heaps, perhaps as they stumbled over each other or tried to help one another in the moments after a geyser of gasoline shot into the air Friday.
The leak was caused by an illegal pipeline tap in the small town of Tlahuelilpan, about 62 miles (100 kilometers) north of Mexico City, according to state oil company Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex.
Video footage showed dozens of people in an almost festive atmosphere gathered in a field where a duct had been breached by fuel thieves. Footage then showed flames shooting high into the air against a night sky and the pipeline ablaze. Screaming people ran from the explosion, some themselves burning and waving their arms.
On Saturday, several of the dead lay on their backs, their arms stretched out in agony. Some seemed to have covered their chests in a last attempt to protect themselves from the flames; another few black-charred corpses seemed to embrace each other in death.
Lost shoes were scattered around the scorched field, as were plastic jugs and jerry cans that the victims had carried to gather spilling fuel.” End
Not stated above, but several billion dollars worth in gasoline is stolen yearly from the Pemex gas line. Most of the big losses are due to organized crime, but the locals seems to think they can help themselves too. Of course electricity, cable and even postal theft is rampant. So many sticky fingers in this country and these bad old habits are hard to break, even when allowed into the USA.
This is not to say there are not a lot of decent, honest, caring Mexican people, there are, it’s just that the good folks are being overwhelmed by crime and corruption. They are hopelessly stuck with widespread crime and corruption and we’re stuck with the socialist-democrats and that’s almost as bad.
*Were
Ain’t that a hoot, y’all got ya a grammar cop here.
Curiosity around these parts is not to hang yer laundry on someone else’s line.
Please … a few dozen people do not steal billions of dollars worth of oil.
Oligarchs have been stealing our oil for years, and years, and years? I mean, it’s been a standing joke for twenty years at least. Big Oil puts 3 million barrels into one end of its trans-Siberian pipeline, and only 2 million barrels come out the other end.
So why are you in a snit about this sad and small incident? I’ll tell you why: Conservatives are also frightened by poor people.
And your “news” purveyors know this, prey upon you, and make money for themselves. For how long are you going to be such a sucker?