Deadly explosion at Mexico City children's hospital

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/29/childrens-hospital-explosion-mexico-city

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A woman and two children have died and dozens more were injured in a gas explosion in a Mexico City maternity hospital that shattered the building and caused it to collapse.

“The hospital is completely destroyed,” local council leader Adrián Rubalcaba told Radio Formula of the devastation at the city-run Maternity and Children’s Hospital of Cuajimalpa. “We have been lucky that the number of fatalities is still low. There are a lot of people injured who have been taken to other hospitals.”

Authorities estimated there were up to 100 people inside the hospital at the time of the explosion on Thursday morning. Employees told reporters that many left the building when they began to smell gas.

A 25-year-old nurse and a newborn between two and three weeks old died at the scene and another infant died several hours later at another paediatric hospital, said Armando Ahued, the city’s health secretary. He had said earlier that 21 babies in all had been injured, with nine of those and seven adults in a serious condition after being rushed to other hospitals.

The explosion occurred at 7.05am while a gas tanker was filling up a stationary tank in the hospital. A leak was detected and the fire service called.

“Everything shook and a huge plume of smoke rose up,” said Emiliano Lara, who saw the explosion as he was leaving his house on a hill above the hospital, which is located on the north-western edge of the capital.

Lara and other locals rushed down the hill and began searching for survivors in the rubble. They used their bare hands and rudimentary tools. “At one point I called out for a saw and five minutes later somebody brought one,” he said.

The 49-year-old maintenance worker said they first released two nurses and then five babies.

“They weren’t crying but I knew they were alive because they were moving their little arms and legs,” he told the Guardian. He said it appeared they had been in an area of specialised care, as several were attached to drip tubes.

Lara said that he heard faint cries when he put his ear to the rubble. He said the locals worked with firemen already at the scene for about 40 minutes until specialised rescue teams arrived, their approach having been hampered by the rush-hour traffic.

Thirty-five-year-old Felicitas Hernández wept as she frantically questioned people outside the mostly collapsed building, hoping for word of her month-old baby, who had been in the hospital since birth with respiratory problems.

“They wouldn’t let me sleep with him,” Hernández, who said she had come to the city-run Maternity and Children’s hospital of Cuajimalpa because shedidn’t have the money, told the Associated Press.

Witnesses said the tanker workers had struggled frantically for 15 or 20 minutes to repair the leak while a large cloud of gas formed.

“The hose broke. The two gas workers tried to stop it but they were very nervous. They yelled for people to get out,” said Laura Diaz Pacheco, a laboratory technician.

“Everyone’s initial reaction was to go inside, away from the gas. Maybe as many as 10 of us were able to get out ... The rest stayed inside.

Local residents said they heard sirens well before the explosion took place at 7.15am. They saw no sign of an evacuation.

Soldiers and police cordoned off the area amid chaotic scenes as helicopters ferried victims to other hospitals.

Initial reports that seven people had died were later revised down. The authorities issued a general call for blood donors.

As the day wore on people arrived with diapers and baby formula at Hospital ABC where some of the injured were taken. There was an hour-long wait to donate blood. It was the closest hospital to the explosion and received 31 patients, including 17 children.

The gas truck driver and two other employees of the Express Nieto company were hospitalized but were in custody, said the Mexico City mayor, Mayor Miguel Angel Mancera. He said the company has provided gas to all the city’s public hospitals since 2007.

The incident prompted tweets from President Enrique Pena Nieto and Pope Francis, who wrote: “We are praying for the victims of the explosion in Cuajimalpa, Mexico.”