MEXICO: GAS EXPLOSION DISASTER IN MEXICO LEAVES TEN DEAD AND MORE THAN 200 PEOPLE SERIOUSLY INJURED.

Record ID: 1057776

  • Title: MEXICO: GAS EXPLOSION DISASTER IN MEXICO LEAVES TEN DEAD AND MORE THAN 200 PEOPLE SERIOUSLY INJURED.
  • Date: 17th July 1978
  • Summary: 1. GV NIGHT SCENE OF fire (3 shots) 0.14 2. SV Firemen hosing down burning wrecked tanker (3 shots) 0.29 3. GV (FOLLOWING MORNING) Wrecked bus with onlookers milling around 0.43 REPORTER: "More than 26 tons of liquid natural gas exploded into a ball of fire when the tank truck turned over on a busy highway. The flames spread over a half a mile of open countryside. People ten miles away saw them against the night sky. These pictures came from TELEVISA, the Mexican National Television Network, whose symbol is at the lower left hand corner of the screen. The driver of the truck was killed in the explosion. More than two hundred people were injured. The toll of death and injury was high because the truck was being followed along the high by three passenger buses carrying a total of 123 people. When the truck exploded the buses were engulfed in the flames. Richard Hunt, NBC News." The crash came only four days after a propylene gas tanker smashed into a crowded holiday camp in Spain, searing hundreds of people in a ball of fire. With the Mexican tanker driver and his assistant both dead, the cause of the new disaster was not immediately known. One eyewitness suggested an attempt by one of the buses to restart a stalled motor after the truck overturned sparked the explosion. Foreign exports probing the Spanish holocaust have urgently called for international regulations on the transport of dangerous petrochemicals. Initials BB/1940 TELERECORDING Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
  • Embargoed: 31st July 1978 13:00
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  • Location: NORTH OF MEXICO CITY, MEXICO
  • Country: Mexico
  • Reuters ID: LVA2368W7YC6GDVBI0CMLHS0TDNL
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  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS - SOURCE TO BE VERIFIED
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2015. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
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