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Truck Explosion in Mexico Kills 37

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By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.

Published: September 10, 2007

MEXICO CITY, Sept. 10 — At least 37 people were killed and scores injured
today when a truck carrying explosives blew up after crashing into a pickup
truck and catching fire, state and federal authorities said.

The victims included three local reporters, four paramedics, three police
officers and more than a score residents of the nearby village of Celamania. All
were looking at the burning wreckage of the two vehicles early this morning when
an enormous explosion ripped the machines apart and left a crater 15 feet deep
and 60 feet across, officials said.

“The tractor trailer turned over and started to burn,” explained Jesús Torres
Charles, the Coahuila state attorney general, in a radio interview. “When
rescuers arrived, along with a local police unit and three local reporters, the
explosion occurred.”

Fausto Destenave Kuri, the state secretary of public security, said in a
separate radio interview that the truck carried about 27 tons of ammonia
nitrate, an explosive used in the mining industry. The driver was trucking the
explosive from the town of Cuatro Ciénegas toward the border to deliver it to a
company identified as Takata, the federal police said.

The truck had been loaded by Orica, a company that transports explosives for
the mining industry in the state. At about 10:30 p.m. on Sunday, the truck
driver hit a pickup carrying a family, officials said. The accident occurred
about 24 miles from Monclova on the two-lane highway toward San Pedro de las
Colonias, just outside of the city of Torreon.

Gov. Humberto Moreira of Coahuila said the driver got out of his wrecked cab
and warned motorists stuck on the highway because of the accident that the truck
carried explosives. The driver then disappeared and has not been arrested, he
said

“What could have been put out when it was a small fire grew and led to an
explosion,” he said in an interview with TV Azteca.

About 240 people were taken in buses to a hospital in Monclova, were at least
30 underwent surgery and five were in critical condition, the governor said.

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