Explosion kills 7 at hotel in Mexico

PLAYA DE CARMEN, Mexico – A powerful explosion likely caused by an accumulation of gas killed 7 people, including five Canadian tourists, on Sunday at a large resort hotel on Mexico’s Caribbean coast, authorities said.

Two Mexican employees of the sprawling, 676-room hotel Grand Riviera Princess hotel in Playa del Carmen, south of Cancun, were also killed in the blast, said Francisco Alor, attorney general of Quintana Roo, where the resorts are located.

Two other Canadians suffered severe injuries and were listed in critical condition. Ten others, including two U.S. citizens and eight Mexican employees of the hotel, suffered less serious wounds and were listed as stable.

Alor described a horrific scene in which the floor of the building was basically hurled through the ceiling by the force of the explosion, blowing out windows and sending fragments of aluminum window and ceiling panels frame over a wide area.

Alor said the dead include four men and a woman, but offered no further information on the victims. Playa del Carmen civil defense director Jesus Puc said the Canadian fatalities included a 9-year-old boy.

The resort was hosting a large number of Canadians, including at least one wedding and a company vacation.

The blast occurred on the ground floor of one of a dozen or so buildings that make up the sprawling hotel, and left a crater a yard deep.

It also blew out windows and hurled pieces of paving, glass and aluminum about 50 yards onto the palm-fringed lawn of the compound.

The area, next to the turquoise waters of the Caribbean, was cordoned off and about 30 Mexican army soldiers stood guard around the hotel.

Alor and other officials, including Puc and local Red Cross director Ricardo Portugal, said the initial investigations suggest the gas that exploded beneath the building was apparently not for cooking, but rather a mix of gases from a nearby swamp.

Alor told local media that investigations were under way to see if the hotel building, which sat on a concrete pad on a swampy area near the beach, had been properly constructed.

“The report suggests an accumulation of gases produced by decomposing organic material in the subsoil, and this gas produced the explosion,” Alor said.

Officials said no gas lines were located in the area where the blast occurred.