Gas blast at Mexico children’s hospital claims seven lives

MEXICO CITY: A gas explosion ripped through a children’s hospital in Mexico City on Thursday, killing at least seven people and injuring dozens, including 22 children, officials said.

Rescuers toiled through the rubble of the Maternity and Children’s Hospital in the Cuajimalpa borough to look for people who were trapped following the blast, said civil protection chief Fausto Lugo.

City mayor Miguel Angel Mancera told MVS Radio that the area was evacuated “for safety because a lot of the people are babies in the crib area.”

Television images showed people with bloodied faces being car- ried to ambulances. Around 40 percent of the hospital was destroyed.

A gas tanker truck blew up outside the building, officials said. Lugo said that the explosion “very likely” happened when a fuel pipe broke, but that the cause was still under investigation.