An explosion rocked the offices of Mexico's state oil company Thursday, killing at least 25 people and injuring 101, Mexico's interior minister said.
Dozens of people were trapped in the building after the explosion, Foro TV reported. It was unclear how many of them had been pulled to safety, or whether anyone remained stuck inside late Thursday, Interior Minister Miguel Angel Osorio Chong told reporters.
More than five hours after the blast, rescuers had pulled at least one survivor from the rubble, Mexico's president said in a Twitter post.
Crews were still searching Thursday night for people who could be trapped in the Pemex office complex, which includes one of the city's tallest skyscrapers.
The explosion occurred in a basement and collapsed two floors of a building adjacent to the well-known tower, said Carlos Javier Rodriguez Jurado, one of the first paramedics to arrive at the scene.
The explosion tore through the building "from the inside out," he said, and rescuers found many people trapped. Six hours after the explosion, Rodriguez said people were likely still stuck in the rubble.
It was unclear what caused the blast, and Mexico's attorney general's office is investigating, Pemex said in a statement.
A large plume of smoke rose near the building after the explosion around 4 p.m. Thursday, and emergency crews swarmed the scene.
"People were screaming. ... You could see pieces of the wall falling to the ground," said Joaquin Borrell Valenzuela, an attorney for the Pemex comptroller's office, who was in a courtyard outside the building at the time of the blast.
0 comments:
Post a Comment