The
mid-afternoon blast shattered the lower floors of the downtown tower, throwing
debris into the streets and sending frightened workers running outside.
A
government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said preliminary
findings suggested the blast was caused by a gas boiler exploding in a Pemex
building next to the tower. But the cause was still being investigated, the
official added.
The explosion was the latest in a series of safety
problems to hit Mexico's national oil monopoly.
Interior Minister Miguel
Angel Osorio Chong said the blast killed at least 25 people, up from a previous
count of 14, and injured 100. Dozens of employees were believed to be still
trapped inside, and rescue workers said the death toll at the Pemex skyscraper
could keep rising.
Mauricio Parra, a paramedic at the scene, said he
believed at least 20 people had died and that 100 could be trapped at the
offices of Pemex, a national institution that President Enrique Pena Nieto's
administration has pledged to reform this year.
Police quickly cordoned
off the building, and television images showed the explosion caused major damage
to the ground floor and blew out windows on the lower floors of the
tower.
"You could feel it all through the building," said Mario Guzman, a
Pemex worker who was on the 10th floor of the building, which is more than 50
floors high.
First mistaking the blast for an earthquake, Guzman, who
said he escaped after running down the stairs, feared the building would
collapse on top of him and his colleagues, "and that we would end up like a
sandwich."
Several witnesses said the blast came from the neighboring
Pemex building. Pemex said initially the tower was evacuated due to a problem
with its electricity supply. It then said there had been an explosion, but did
not say what caused it.
Earlier in the evening, Pena Nieto, who took
office in December, went to the scene of the blast and said it would be
thoroughly investigated. He vowed to apply "the force of the law" if anyone was
found to be responsible for it.
Mexican news network Milenio said
security officials after the explosion carried out a precautionary search of
Congress for explosive devices, but found nothing.
Helicopters buzzed
around the building and lines of fire trucks sped to the entrance, while
emergency workers ferried injured people through wreckage strewn on the
street.
Search-and-rescue dogs were sent into the skyscraper, a Mexico
City landmark that sports a distinctive "hat" on top. Pemex published a list of
105 workers who were being treated for injuries in hospitals.
DEADLY
ACCIDENTS
Some families of people working in the tower were impatient for
news about missing relatives.
Gloria Garcia, 53, herself a Pemex worker
who was not in the building during the explosion, came to see if she could track
down her son, who worked in one of the floors hit.
"I'm calling his phone
and he's not answering," Garcia said, weeping as she called repeatedly on her
phone. "Nobody knows anything. They won't let me through. I want to see my son
whatever state he's in."
Pemex has experienced a number of deadly
accidents in recent years and lesser safety problems have been a regular
occurrence. In September, 30 people died after an explosion at a Pemex natural
gas facility in northern Mexico.
More than 300 were killed when a Pemex
natural gas plant on the outskirts of Mexico City exploded in 1984.
Eight
years later, about 200 people were killed and 1,500 injured after a series of
underground gas explosions in Guadalajara, Mexico's second biggest city. An
official investigation found Pemex was partly to blame.
Alberto Islas, a
security analyst at consultancy Risk Evaluation, said the explosion at the Pemex
offices was another blot against the company's safety record.
"We've seen
this time and again at Pemex. They don't have a well-integrated policy," Islas
said, noting it would probably take several hours before investigators would be
able to determine the cause of the explosion.
Pemex, a symbol of Mexican
self-sufficiency since the oil industry was nationalized in 1938, has been held
back by inefficiency and corruption and by the burden it shoulders of providing
about a third of federal tax revenues.
Pena Nieto has pledged to open up
the company to more private investment to improve its performance.
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