Author: Paulina Villegas and Kirk Semple / Source: New York Times
Oasa/EPA, via Shutterstock
MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s president vowed on Saturday to redouble his fight against an epidemic of chronic fuel theft after thieves punctured a pipeline north of Mexico City, causing an explosion that killed at least 66 people and injured 76 others.
The blast underscored the deadly perils of the fuel-theft racket, which has cost the government billions of dollars a year and has been the target of a weekslong crackdown by the administration of Mexico’s new president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
“Although it hurts a lot, we have to continue with the plan to end fuel theft,” Mr. López Obrador said during a news conference at the presidential palace in Mexico City. “We will not stop. We will eradicate this.”
The explosion, which occurred Friday night along a pipeline in a rural part of the state of Hidalgo, was particularly deadly because the promise of free gasoline had drawn hundreds of residents to the breach in the pipeline.
Videos taken before the blast showed a raucous atmosphere, with villagers from the rural municipality of Tlahuelilpan, including families, whooping and laughing as they filled plastic jugs, pails and canisters with the gasoline, which gushed from the break like a geyser.
In the footage, military personnel who had rushed to the scene can be seen standing by and observing the throng that had converged on the pipeline, which connects to the nearby Tula refinery operated by the government-run oil firm Petróleos Mexicanos, known as Pemex.
Mexico’s defense secretary, Luis Cresencio Sandoval, said that about 25 troops were on the scene, but the contingent was not large enough to turn back the 600 to 800 villagers who had swarmed the site. He said that his troops tried to persuade residents to retreat but their entreaties were ignored, and some of the people turned “aggressive” toward the soldiers.
About two hours after the authorities learned of the break, the fuel ignited, causing a huge explosion and sending flames and clouds of smoke into the sky. Videos and photographs circulating on social media and broadcast on Mexican news channels showed people engulfed in fire running away from the…
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