Mexican authorities have said that a gas leak caused an explosion in a restaurant in northern Mexico near the US border yesterday, which killed at least 14 people when the building collapsed on breakfast diners.
TV images showed rescue workers and local residents using their hands to pick through rubble seeking more victims from the blast at the restaurant in the town of Nuevo Progreso, two blocks from an international bridge crossing to Texas.
The blast also ripped open the front facades of other neighboring buildings, images showed. Rescue workers worked with tractors to dig into the collapsed building.
"For the moment there are 14 dead, and we don't have an exact figure for the injured as some were passersby. They were not in the restaurant," said Red Cross spokesman Jorge Alberto Lopez. "We are moving rubble to see if we find anyone else."
"The building collapsed and glass damaged other businesses," police radio operator Santiago Ibanez told local radio.
Ibanez said the blast was caused by a leaky gas tank. The explosion sent shards of glass flying over a wide area, damaging 19 other businesses and 18 vehicles.
The explosion occurred at 8:30 a.m. in the small tourist town across the Rio Grande from Progreso in the United States. The two towns share an international bridge crossing between the United States and Mexico .
Bruno Bocanegra heard the blast from the U.S. side of the border. "It thundered very strongly," said Bocanegra, who works for B&P Bridge Company, the firm that operates the bridge. It which was closed for four hours after the explosion.