Fuel theft crackdown after pipeline blast

THE death toll from a pipeline explosion in central Mexico has risen to 66, according to Hidalgo state governor Omar Fayad.

Over 85 other people were listed as missing yesterday, a day after a massive fireball erupted at an illegal pipeline tap in the small town of Tlahuelilpan, about 62 miles north of Mexico City.

Local official Jorge Aguilar Lopez said: “What happened here should serve as an example for the whole nation to unite behind the fight that the president is carrying out against this ill.”

The tragedy came just three weeks after new president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador launched an offensive against fuel theft gangs drilling dangerous, illegal taps into pipelines an astounding 12,581 times in the first 10 months of 2018, an average of about 42 per day.

It is now likely to further intensify its crackdown on the illegal taps and focus attention on Lopez Obrador’s fight against the illegal fuel theft industry.

Video footage showed dozens of people in an almost festive atmosphere gathered in a field where a duct had been breached by fuel thieves.

Footage then showed flames shooting into the air against a night sky and the pipeline ablaze. Screaming people ran from the explosion, some themselves burning and waving their arms.

In an early-morning press conference yesterday, Lopez Obrador vowed to continue the fight against the billiondollar illegal fuel theft industry.

“We are going to eradicate that which not only causes material damages, it is not only what the nation loses by this illegal trade, this black market of fuel, but the risk, the danger, the loss of human lives,” he said.

The war against fuel theft was a theme repeated by people in Tlahuelilpan, which is crossed by pipelines and located just a few miles from a refinery.

Another pipeline burst into flames earlier on Friday in the neighbouring state of Queretaro due to another illegal tap. Fuel company Pemex said the fire was “in an unpopulated area and there is no risk to human beings”.

In December 2010, authorities also blamed oil thieves for a pipeline explosion that killed 28 people, including 13 children.