An apparent natural gas explosion Sunday morning has killed seven people, including five tourists and one nine-year-old boy, reports USA Today.
Five Canadian tourists and two Mexican workers were among those killed by the blast at the 676-room Grand Riviera Princess Hotel in Mexico’s Playa de Carmen. Eight other Canadians were injured, including two who are listed in critical condition. Ten other people, including two U.S. citizens and eight Mexican employees of the hotel, suffered less serious injuries and were listed as stable.
Canadian news outlet CBC News report that the dead are a woman and four males: a nine-year-old boy, a 51-year-old man and two other men between 25 and 30 years of age.
Canadian outlet The Star offered the following explanation for the blast:
Initial investigations were focusing on the possibility that naturally occurring gas from a nearby swamp had built up under the hotel and somehow ignited, said Francisco Alor, attorney general of Quintana Roo, where the resort is located. Officials at the resort said no gas lines were located in the area where the blast occurred.
“The report suggests an accumulation of gases produced by decomposing organic material in the subsoil, and this gas produced the explosion,” Alor said. “Expert examiners and civil defence personnel will have to determine if the underground space filled with swampy water that remained in this zone when the building was constructed four years ago, could have generated this type of gases.”
Our thoughts are with the victims and their families.