Thread: Explosion at Mexican Resort 6 Dead

http://news.therecord.com/News/Local/article/812882

Explosion at Mexico resort where group of Waterloo Region residents staying
Pete Travers/The Canadian Press
PLAYA DEL CARMEN, Mexico — An explosion has rocked a Mexican resort hotel killing six people, three of whom may be Canadian tourists, Mexican officials said Sunday.

There was also a group of Waterloo Region residents at the resort.

The natural gas explosion occurred at the Grand Princess Riviera Hotel in the resort city of Playa del Carmen around 9:30 a.m. Sunday.

Local authorities also said 15 people were injured.

Francisco Alor, attorney general for the state in which the resort city is located, said three of the dead may be Canadian tourists, while two others appear to be hotel employees.

Alor said the explosion is believed to have taken place under the hotel lobby’s floor.

Video shot by Pete Travers, 570 News: Aftermath of explosion

Pete Travers, program director of 570 News Radio in Kitchener, is at the hotel with a large group of Canadians from Waterloo. He said all the members of his group were accounted for.

Travers recalls hearing a huge crash before he went down for breakfast. He stepped into the hallway to find people running away from the blast site as word of an explosion rippled across the resort.

“There was quite a lot of chaos,â€

Mexico hotel blast kills 4 Canadians, 2 Mexicans

The victims include a 9-year-old boy; two Americans among injured

An explosion believed to have been caused by an accumulation of natural gas killed six people and injured 15 Sunday at a resort hotel on Mexico's Caribbean coast, authorities said.

The Associated Press
updated 1 hour 3 minutes ago 2010-11-14T22:57:33

A powerful explosion believed to have been caused by an accumulation of gas killed six people and injured 15 on Sunday at a resort hotel on Mexico's Caribbean coast, authorities said.

Four of the dead have been tentatively identified as Canadian tourists, including a nine-year boy, said Quintana Roo state Attorney General Francisco Alor.

He did not give the victims' names, and Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade could not immediately confirm the report of Canadian casualties. Alor said the other two dead were Mexicans; it was unclear whether they were employees of the hotel or tourists.

Eight of the injured are Canadians, two are Americans and five are Mexicans, Alors said.

The blast occurred on the ground floor of one of a dozen or so buildings that make up the sprawling 676-room Grand Riviera Princess hotel in Playa del Carmen, located in Quintana Roo state south of Cancun.

The explosion blasted chunks of flooring through the roof and left a crater a yard (meter) deep inside the building. It also blew out windows and hurled pieces of stone paving and glass shards about 50 yards (meters) onto the palm-fringed lawn of the compound.

Alor and other officials, including Playa del Carmen Civil Defense director Jesus 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 and possibly sewage.

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

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

James Gaade, a resident of St. Catharines, Ontario, said he was walking on the beach when he heard a loud noise explosion and saw smoke coming from the resort's premium platinum lounge.

"I looked and you could see that the roof (of the restaurant) had collapsed. There was a large crater in the area, debris," he said.

"Everyone said their hotel room shook. The glass at neighboring restaurants all cracked and blew out. The tiki hut that was in the area, that was on fire."

Gaade said one of the guests providing first aid told him that three people from Toronto were injured.

He estimated that 50 to 70 percent of the guests at the resort were Canadians.

Pete Travers, program director of 570 News Radio in Kitchener, Ontario, was at the hotel with a large group of Canadians from nearby Waterloo. He said all members of his group were accounted for.

Travers recalled hearing a huge crash before he went down for breakfast. He stepped into the hallway to find people running from the blast site as word of an explosion rippled across the resort.

"There was quite a lot of chaos," Travers said. He and a few other guests rushed to grab deck chairs from the pool area to use as makeshift stretchers.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40182481/ns ... -americas/