A gas truck driver and two assistants were arrested Friday in connection with a deadly gas explosion that leveled part of a maternity hospital in Mexico City, killing at least three people and injuring dozens, authorities said.
The blast occurred at about 7 a.m. Thursday with more than 100 people inside Cuajimalpa Maternal Hospital — minutes after a hose burst on a truck supplying gas to the building.
Rescuers rushed from the rubble with babies in their arms. Paramedics hauled bloodied victims on stretchers.
The truck operator was identified as Julio César Martínez and his two assistants as Carlos Chavez and Salvador Alatorre, according to Rodolfo Rios Garza, a local attorney. The charges against them were not immediately available.
Two of men in custody are hospitalized, and a third, with less serious injuries, was checked at a hospital.
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A truck was supplying gas to the hospital when apparently a hose burst and the resulting leak caused an explosion, Mancera said.
The gas in question is known as liquefied petroleum gas, a mix that could be mostly propane or mostly butane. These propane/butane mixes are commonly used in Mexico for heating, cooking and other fuel applications.
Gas Express Nieto, the company that owned the truck, has operated in Mexico City since 2007 and has a contract to supply gas to hospitals run by the Mexico City government, the mayor said.
The hospital is 70% collapsed, Mancera said, although some walls and steel columns are still standing.
Journalists James Fredrick and Sheila A. Sanchez Fermin and CNN’s Krupskaia Alis and Fidel Gutierrez contributed to this report from Mexico City. CNN’s Eliott C. McLaughlin and Mayra Cuevas contributed from Atlanta.
