The Mexico City Public Health Secretariat updated the death toll this Monday from the explosion of a gas tanker truck in the Iztapalapa borough last week. The agency announced that the death toll from the accident now totals 15. 39 people remain hospitalized, while 30 have been discharged.
The accident, one of the most serious in the last decade in the capital, occurred last Wednesday on the La Concordia Bridge, near the border between Mexico City and Nezahualcóyotl, in the State of Mexico, on the exit to Puebla. According to the initial report from the Mexico City Prosecutor's Office, released this Friday, the accident occurred when a "solid object" struck the tanker's gas tank, breaking the cover, which led to the gas leak and its subsequent ignition.
Following the latest update on Monday morning, in which the death toll increased by one compared to the 13 announced on Saturday, the Ministry of Health announced that the most recent death is an unidentified person. So far, the agency has not been able to contact any family members.
It has also been announced that Azulet, the two-year-old girl who was saved by her grandmother, Alicia Matías, and who died between Friday night and Saturday morning, has been transferred to Shriners Hospital for Children in Texas, United States, to receive "highly specialized" medical care. The child left Siglo XXI Hospital accompanied by her mother thanks to an effort by the Michou and Mau Foundation.
The powerful images, recorded by passersby and drivers, of the flames, which reached more than 30 meters, demonstrate the magnitude of the fire. Despite the progress made in the investigation, controversy surrounds what happened. Just one day after the incident, residents and drivers criticized the condition of the pavement in the area where the trailer overturned, riddled with potholes and holes.
The potholes hadn't been addressed for months. It took a tragedy for the repairs to happen so quickly," complained a few days ago a driver who passes by the area daily. The Prosecutor's Office has reported, however, that inspections by forensic services at the site concluded that "no potholes or damage to the asphalt were found."
Another suspicious aspect of the accident points to possible irregularities by the company that managed the tanker, Transportadora Silza, which is part of the Tomza Group. First, the Agency for Safety, Energy, and Environment (ASEA) said on Tuesday that the semi-trailer had not filed any applications for liability or environmental damage insurance. The company responded by clarifying that it did have valid insurance policies. ASEA later replied that if this was true, the company had not updated its information.
Carlos Rius, an academic at the UNAM School of Chemistry, warns that when dealing with highly flammable materials, "extreme precautions" are necessary. According to his calculations, the nearly 50,000 liters of liquid gas transported by the trailer turned into more than 700,000 liters of gas. "There could have been severe damage within a radius of at least 500 meters," the academic warned about the incident by phone.
The accident has brought to the fore the debate about the prudence of transporting hazardous materials during peak traffic times and in areas with high population density. On this topic, the head of the capital's government, Clara Brugada, proposed developing a protocol on what types of merchandise can travel through the city's streets and how.