Blast at Mexico oil plant kills 13

The death toll from a thunderous blast at a petrochemical plant in Mexico has risen to at least 13, an official said yesterday, in the latest accident plaguing the state-run oil giant Pemex.

The toll could rise further as another 136 people were injured, 13 of them critically, in Wednesday's explosion, which sent up huge plumes of black, toxic smoke and triggered panic among locals fearing a repeat of a 1991 blast at the same plant that caused a deadly gas leak.

The new blast at the petrochemical plant in the city of Coatzacoalcos in eastern Veracruz state was so powerful it was felt 10 kilometers (six miles) away. It shattered windows and forced the evacuation of schools and businesses.

Crews kept working Thursday to cool off one particularly hard hit area of the plant, hosing it down with water.

Investigators have yet to enter this area because of fears that structures might collapse, Luis Felipe Puente, a senior civil protection official within the state interior ministry, told Milenio television.

The blast at the Petroquimica Mexicana de Vinilo (PMV) plant was caused by some kind of leak, said Jose Antonio Gonzalez, chief executive of Pemex.

Pemex said in the late afternoon of Wednesday that the situation was "completely under control."

A natural gas plant explosion killed 30 people in the northeastern state of Tamaulipas in 2012. Even its headquarters -- a skyscraper in the heart of Mexico City -- was hit in January 2013 by a blast caused by a gas buildup that left 37 dead.