SAN MARTIN TEXMELUCAN, MEXICO (AP) -- A massive oil pipeline explosion has laid waste to parts of a central Mexican city, incinerating people, cars, houses and trees as gushing crude turned streets into flaming rivers.
Authorities now say at least 28 people were killed, 13 of them children, in a disaster they blame on oil thieves.
The blast in San Martin Texmelucan, initially estimated to have affected 5,000 residents in a three-mile radius, scorched homes and cars and left metal and pavement twisted and in some cases burned to ash in the intense heat.
Relatives sobbed as firefighters pulled charred bodies from the incinerated homes, some of the remains barely more than piles of ashes and bones.
Aside from the deaths, at least 52 people were hurt and 84 remain in a shelter after fleeing San Martin, which is about 55 miles east of Mexico City. More than 115 homes were scorched, 32 of them destroyed.
(Copyright ©2010 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
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