Blast Levels Mexico Factory

A tremendous explosion leveled a rattletrap cooking oil factory in a busy industrial neighborhood here Tuesday, and police reported that 39 workers and bystanders were wounded.

The toll of victims was expected to rise as civil defense workers continued to dig under tons of scattered bricks and mangled cement columns at the plant, looking for survivors or bodies of victims.

The blast occurred at 1:15 p.m. in a big storage tank of hydrogen inside the factory of Productos Puente, a company that makes soap and hydrogenated oil products located just west of Mexico City’s international airport.

Police investigators have not determined exactly what caused the hydrogen to explode, but they said the 6,600-gallon tank was 25 years old and appeared to be in very deteriorated condition.

An official of the union at the factory said that some 60 workers were employed at the site, but it was unclear how many were inside at the time of the blast.

The explosion, which could be felt for a mile around, blew off the roof of the plant.

A huge metal shard ripped from one tank landed in the street a block away.

Concrete electric poles in front of the plant were toppled, and the windows of several public buses that were traveling on the street were blown out.