MEXICO CITY – A blast that collapsed the lower floors of a building in the headquarters of Mexico’s state-owned oil company, crushing at least 33 people beneath tons of rubble and injuring 121, is being looked at as an accident although all lines of investigation remain open, the head of Petroleos Mexicanos said Friday.
As hundreds of emergency workers dug through the rubble, the company’s worst disaster in a decade was fueling debate about the state of Pemex, a vital source of government revenue that is suffering from decades of underinvestment and has been hit by a series of accidents that have tarnished its otherwise improving safety record.
Until now, virtually all the accidents had hit its petroleum infrastructure, not its offices.
“It seems like, from what one can observe, from what the experts are seeing, that it was an accident,” Pemex Director General Emilio Lozoya said. “However no line of investigation will be discounted.”
Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto has pledged to open the oil behemoth to more private and foreign investment, setting off warnings among leftists about the privatization of an enterprise seen as one of the pillars of the Mexican state. Pena Nieto has provided few details of the reform he will propose but denies any plan to privatize Pemex.
In a debate on MVS Radio about Pemex on Friday morning, Juan Bueno Torio, a congressman from the conservative National Action Party, said Pemex should be granted more budgetary independence as part of the reform, allowing it to better address infrastructure problems that he said have been neglected under government control.
Less than 24 hours after the accident at Pemex headquarters, early signs pointed to a problem in an area with electrical and air conditioning equipment, according to a government official who was not authorized to speak by name. Pemex said in the first minutes after the accident it had evacuated the building because of a problem with the electrical system.
A Pemex spokesman said the floors hit by the explosion housed administrative offices.
Pemex and Interior Secretary Miguel Angel Osorio Chong said Friday afternoon that the death toll had risen to 33.
Lozoya said the priority remains rescue and recovery, plus attending to the families of those who died and the injured, which include 52 people who remain hospitalized.
Attorney General Jesus Murillo said Friday afternoon that rescue crews have searched most of the area damaged by the blast but that survivors or more victims could still be found in the most unstable parts, which have not yet been fully checked.
Click to enlarge