Residents look at pictures of people missing after an explosion of a fuel pipeline ruptured by oil thieves, in the municipality of Tlahuelilpan, state of Hidalgo, Mexico January 21, 2019. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – The number of people who died from a gasoline pipeline explosion in central Mexico last week has risen to 94, government officials said on Tuesday, from 91 reported a day earlier.
The explosion last Friday occurred as about 800 people in Hidalgo state’s Tlahuelilpan district were collecting gasoline that was gushing from a pipeline leak near a major refinery.
Central Mexico had been hard hit by gasoline shortages after President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador launched a crackdown on fuel theft nearly a month ago, ordering pipelines closed in an effort to stamp out criminal activity.
(Reporting by Dave Graham and Daina Beth Solomon; Editing by Bernadette Baum)
