DEVELOPMENT-MEXICO: Guanajuato Tragedy Exposes Lack of Safeguards

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Pilar Franco

MEXICO CITY, Sep 27 1999 (IPS) - Explosions transformed a city in central Mexico into an inferno, again revealing the lack of disaster-prevention awareness in this country, where tragedy already has set serious precedents.

The Sunday explosion at a clandestine downtown warehouse that held some four tonnes of gunpowder left 56 dead and nearly 350 injured in the town of Celaya, in Guanajuato state, located 380 km north of Mexico City.

Guanajuato governor Ramón Martín Huerta acknowledged Monday that the number of victims could rise as rescue operations progress in the area.

According to the testimony of neighourhood residents, the central market area where the incident occurred could still hold undetermined quantities of explosives.

At 10:25 local time Sunday, the storehouse exploded, and with it the rockets and materials for the illegal manufacture and sale of fireworks.

Half an hour later, while rescue operations were underway to pull people from the ruins, a tank of gas exploded – a result of the spreading flames.

Two fire-fighters, three paramedics working in the debris and a photographer died in this second explosion, thought to be the strongest of the total four that rocked the city.

The explosions were felt one kilometre away and caused incalculable damage to the market, a bus terminal and several other businesses whose foundations were leveled.

Witnesses reported how, in just a few seconds, the hubbub of Celaya’s largest business centre was transformed into the yells and wails of the injured people at the scene.

It is one of the country’s worst disasters and harkens back to the 1992 explosions in the city of Guadalajara, the nation’s second largest city, where 210 people died as a result of an explosion resulting from gas accumulation in the sewers.

In 1984, a natural gas plant exploded leaving 500 dead and 1,750 injured in San Juan Ixhuatepec, on one of the hills surrounding the capital, creating an enormous mushroom cloud of smoke that could be seen throughout Mexico City.

The Celaya disaster, in which the army had to cordoned off the area and take control of rescue and surveillance operations, is evidence of the lack of measures in place to prevent and handle such dangerous situations.

A national system for disaster prevention has been in effect only since 1990. Five years earlier, Mexico lived through the worst tragedy of its modern history: the earthquake in the capital that registered 8.1 on the Richter scale.

According to official data, the devastating quake killed at least 500 people, though unofficial estimates put the number of fatalities between 10,000 and 30,000.

Half of the country’s 32 states have their own disaster prevention laws, but education on such measures and holding disaster drills continue to be the Achilles heel of the national system, according to experts.

Mexico City is considered a time-bomb where accidents, fires, gas- leaks, explosions, fallen electrical lines and chemical spills are daily threats to its 20 million inhabitants.

Prior to Sunday’s disaster, Celaya had just eight fire-fighters. Juan Manuel Segoviano, age 24 and a victim of the second explosion, had been working without pay since age 19.

Cristina Camarena, an 18-year-old secretary who had been named local Red Cross Queen, took part in the rescue efforts but became another victim in the disaster.

Throughout the country, the manufacture and sale of rockets and other pyrotechnic products are money in the bank, providing the main source of income for a large number of families.

In their rustic, clandestine shops, this army of people supplies an indispensable element of the nation’s tradition of using fireworks to celebrate holidays and important events.

But the manufacture of fireworks that has made Mexico famous has also created a history of disasters. The most recent incident before the Celaya tragedy occurred Oct 13, 1998.

In Tultepec, in Mexico state, the birthplace of national pyrotechnics manufacturing, 10 people died and another 35 were injured in a firworks factory explosion. Ten years earlier, one of the oldest markets in the capital suffered a similar fate, with a total of 61 dead.

Guanajuato governor Martín Huerta reported that several individuals had been sanctioned for their involvement in this illegal industry, but he admitted that the laws only provide for fining the guilty parties.