Death toll from Mexico pipeline explosion rises to 66

The death toll from a pipeline explosion in central Mexico has risen to 66, governor of the state of Hidalgo said on Saturday.

Seventy-six people had also been injured in Friday evening's explosion, Hidalgo Governor Omar Fayad said at a press conference here with President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

The explosion and ensuing blaze occurred at a pipeline spot in the community of San Primitivo of the municipality of Tlahuelilpan at around 7:00 p.m. local time (0100 GMT), when hundreds of people gathered around a leak to collect fuel.

The pipeline of the state-owned petroleum company Pemex runs from the coasts of the Gulf of Mexico to the Tula refinery, near the site of the incident.

Fayad said that the death toll could rise further as many of the injured were struggling between "life and death."

According to the local government, between 600 and 800 people gathered in the area of the drilling to collect leaking fuel with containers and many of them were bathed in the hydrocarbon.

Fayad said that military personnel and police tried to disperse the crowd after the armed forces responded to the leak at around 5:00 p.m. local time (2300 GMT), but people ignored the warning until the explosion came.

Lopez Obrador said he was dismayed by the tragedy. He offered his deepest sympathy to the families of the victims and ordered the government to offer support.

"The most important thing" now was attending to the injured in order to save people's lives, the president said.

Authorities indicated that the pipeline leakage was illegally tapped by fuel thieves, a problem that afflicts the Pemex pipelines.

Lopez Obrador, who took office on Dec. 1, has launched a major crackdown on increasing fuel theft in Mexico, which cost the country some 3 billion U.S. dollars last year.

The accident is one of the worst tragedies due to pipeline explosions in Mexico in recent years.

In December 2010, 30 people were killed and 52 others injured in a series of explosions involving two oil pipelines in the central state of Puebla.