Five Deadliest Onshore Oil & Gas Blasts - Part 5
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The San Juanico Disaster |
Date: November 19, 1984
Location: San Juan Ixhuatepec, Tlalnepantla de Baz, Mexico
Casualties: 500-600 fatalities, 5,000 to 7,000 injured
Estimated cost: Unclear
Details: At 5.30am a pipe leakage or rupture due to excess pressure, caused a build up of gas at this PEMEX-owned LPG (Liquid Petroleum Gas) storage and distribution centre 20 km north of Mexico City. Ten minutes later the vapour cloud ignited and a chain reaction of 13 separate explosions began at 5:44am - the two largest of which measured 0.5 on the Richter scale.
Of the 54 storage tanks at the facility only 4 were left standing amidst a crater the size of 4 football stadia. The neighbouring town of San Juan Ixhuatepec was destroyed as cylinders weighing as much as 30 tonnes were flung up to 1.2 kilometres away from the epicentre of the blast.
Twelve years later, on the 12th November 1996 an explosion on a much smaller scale involving two gas cylinders caused the deaths of four people and numerous casualties.
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