The Biggest Disaster You Never Heard Of (PEMEX LPG Explosion '84)
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 8 сен 2024
- A commercial airline pilot thought a nuclear bomb had gone off - that's how big this terrible explosion was. Hundreds killed, thousands injured, and yet it remains relatively unknown outside of Mexico. This is the story of the PEMEX LPG storage explosion...
If you would like to support this channel -
buymeacoffee.c...
or
www.patreon.co...
image credits: lucesdesanjuanico, La Prensa, Especial, CM Pietersen, LaSaga, AP, BBC, Azteca Noticias
www.slideshare...
www.lifeder.co...
en.wikipedia.o...
www.hse.gov.uk...
plumasatomicas...
www.industrial...
www.reuters.co...
mexiconewsdail...
"Was somewhat lacking in safety features" is about as much of an understatement as it gets
Texas and Louisiana have similar facilities with little oversight by government agencies since the states block regulations.
Yes, it seems procedures were decidedly lacksidasical. The toll could actually have been worse.
You should see how they ran nuclear reactors before Chernobyl 😂
Wow, Mexico has deregulation to boost profits just like US!
Pemex is also widely considered to be responsible for the blasts in Guadalajara in the early '90s. Gasoline leaked from one of their facilities and filled the local sewer system.
Hard to know what causes it when stealing gas is the next big thing with the cartels.
I can't deny it, you're right, I haven't heard of it.
Same, first time I heard of it.
I came here to say the exact same thing
Me too. Strange it only happened a couple of weeks before the tragedy in Bhopal and that was not something I’ve forgotten.
Mexican here, I heard of it, I was around 10 years old, but I recall the news about it and seeing some home video footage taken from far away in the early morning by some distant neighbors, maybe 8 or 10 kilometers away from the site, the area was a very-low income area so year, imagine a fireball hitting your home then a shockwave.
Same, thought it was going to be that fossil fuel tanker explosion in southern Spain, I was wrong.
Awful estimated death toll and it’s always horrendous when people can’t be identified or acknowledged as deceased 😔
Great one, but just for those that don’t know those small propane cylinders virtually never explode in a house fire. The overpressure valve, commonly called the “pop off” kicks in and vents the gas. The result is a loud, screaming blowtorch of flame but no earth shattering kaboom. The small tank in the video didn’t blow either. Can’t see to be sure, but the burn marks around the handle and across the top look like the overpressure protection worked as designed.
Bingo, pay the man.
The USCSB found that at least post 84, those valves at least in the US were pre Praxair blast (Which Raven's EYe should cover IMO?) were set up to go off at lower pressures than they were meant to however and were weakened each time they were used as per the CSB's vid on the Praxair blast
@@jacekatalakis8316 That makes a BLEVE even less likely. It was an issue at the St Louis fire because there were hundreds of cylinders containing different gases all stored in very close proximity that suddenly got exposed to a lot of flammable gas fed fire. In a normal house fire, a 20lb cylinder venting early just makes us firefighters jump and briefly soil ourselves a little sooner.
@@alannummy2148 wait, "a little sooner"? So, soiling oneself is a normal, common part of firefighters' jobs? Huh. Well. That's not something you see in the videos. I guess it's just one of your lesser known...ahem...duties... 😉😂
I'd never heard of this disaster before, but while watching it, a word sounded familiar- Pemex. It's shocking that so much about this tragedy is hidden in the mist of time. Another disaster that involved Pemex was the Guadalajara in 1992. A gasoline leak caused a series of explosions in the city. Like in this disaster, the death toll is given as much lower than what it was. Why haven't Pemex learnt from so many bad disasters over four decades?
That’s the one! I knew I’d heard of Pemex before
When you were describing the site I was thinking that, ideally, you'd live as far as possible from it... failing that, right next to it, so you don't have time to know you're dying!
Why the frack did they continue pumping to the site for 40 minutes? 🤯
Great presentation, thankyou.
Capitalism
@@cjthebeesknees Pemex (short for Petróleos Mexicanos) is 100% state-owned, fool, like USPS or Amtrak. They have a terrible record because they have a legal monopoly on petroleum and natural gas extraction, refining, and sale in Mexico. If you've ever been to Mexico you may notice that all the gas stations seem to be owned by Pemex. You'd be right. They literally _all_ are. When your only competition consists of the bicycle and walking shoe industries, you get basically the same amount of customer business regardless of how well or poorly you operate. Capitalism isn't perfect because humans aren't perfect, but competition and the profit motive best incentivize humans to be better.
Because greed always weighs more than human lives. Oil companies are at the forefront of this! Deepwater Horizon, Exxon Valdez, Piper Alpha ...
I remember when this happened because the Bhopal disaster happened just two weeks later. Both gave me an ugly introduction to how cheap human life is often considered in developing countries in regards to industrial safety.
What is the real value of life in developing countries ?
@@benwinter2420 In Mexico it's $10400 apparently.
Human life is cheap to corporations everywhere. It's just easier to throw away in developing countries.
@@fixitman2174because their government don’t provide them worker protections
Well in what are now regarded as first world countries in the not to distant past human life was cheap. For before WW2 there was no universal healthcare, no paid sick leave and no pensions. If you got very sick you either got better on your own or you died. People worked themselves into an early grave so no need for pensions. If you got injured at work and couldn't work and you went on the parish relief. Usually your wife divorced you simply to find a working man to feed the numerous kids you had and he would add his own and if your kids were older and working then they helped support you. Many people fought pitched battles with police to fight for better working conditions and better remuneration that the employers did everything to avoid for it cut into their profits. These days many young people take it for granted and want to give away all these hard fought for rights.
Employers have moved overseas because they know they can make huge profits at the expense of the people who make things for them so the employer class has not changed it's mindset. When the Chinese get too expensive for them then they'll moved to another country to exploit their people for their sacred profits.
One African country still has child labor what the now first world countries had in the 18th and 19th century before it was outlawed.
Apparently I had a uncle work here and it was his day off the day of the explosion. He promptly never worked for PEMEX ever again
I was the pilot in the airplane that called the traffic tower and informed them of the explosion.
@@brownwolf152 what a small world i was the atc operator that day
@@brownwolf152i was the traffic tower man who received the report jk
@@epiles2 todos estábamos en México ese día?
@@jtgd i knew I recognized your texting.
Some other (somewhat?) obscure tragedies, or those that I just think are super important, that I'd like to see covered:
- Iraq Mercury Fungicide Grain Poisoning
- Washington DC Pennsylvania Railroad Runaway Train
- Eschede Derailment
- Silver Bridge Collapse West Virginia
- 2017 DuPont Cascades Train Derailment
- Jerusalem Wedding Hall Collapse
Idk if it is that obscure but I feel like the Ramstein Air Show Disaster should be covered given how it seems a lot of modern air shows are forgetting the tragic lessons about crowd control safety learned from it
There are stories about all those already.
Pretty sure Fascinating Horror has covered most of them
Bhopal in India?
I don’t recall the Silver Bridge Disaster being covered? My vote would be for that one
Seems that a reoccurring theme is companies don't learn their lesson unless they have to. Clearly PEMEX wasn't forced to.
Pemex never learn their lesson from this tragedy. There were more deadly tragedies in the next years to 1984 and there was no justice.
With PRI letting do whatever they didn’t have to learn from their mistakes
With a legal monopoly on petroleum extraction, refining, and sales in Mexico, Pemex has only political pressure (no profit motive) to do better.
BOEING is another
Purely business decision: why spend hundreds of millions in safety measures when tens of millions in bribes to the ruling elite will keep your enterprise profitable.
In 1992, something similar happened in Guadalajara, this time with gasoline instead of LPG. An underground gasoline pipeline ruptured due to galvanic corrosion, flooding the sewers with gasoline and fumes. It found an ignition source, and there was a massive explosion. Over 200 people were killed (probably a _lot_ more), over 500 injured, and damages were between half a billion and 1 billion $'s.
Tip of the hat. Well researched, very well written. and well presented. Always appreciate when a RUclipsr allows the facts to explain a story, rather than the many who try to substitute their emotions for narrative. Subscribed.
I grew up in a refinery town in Texas. I do remember this explosion. LPG (propane) is heavier than air, so the gas cloud would have hovered near the ground, and spread until it found an ignition source. LNG (liquified natural gas, or methane) is lighter than air, and would have risen upward. If it found an ignition source, it also would have exploded, but it probably would have been less catastrophic. That propane near the ground could have spread all over the facility before igniting, causing the subsequent explosions described in the video.
In the US, just as in Mexico, it is poor people who generally live closest to the refineries, chemical plants and storage facilities. That makes it easier for governments and companies to play down the death toll. It is easy to pretend poor people didn't exist. Cancer rates among the poor living near the refineries in my hometown have high rates of cancer, but nobody cares.
My mom had a coworker for many years who was from Mexico City originally. Her parents still lived there when this happened so I remember Elia telling us about it. Her father was a physician and hadn’t yet retired when this happened. I think he ended up having some of the victims from further away from the plant as patients.
You're right, I had never heard of this. Truly horrific. Thank you for covering these lesser-known disasters.
Holy crap that last explosion about made my heart stop
I was 9 at the time. I remember adults and people at school talking about how horrifying it was. I wasn't allowed to see the news at the time, so I only had a vague idea of what had really happened. I was terrified of turning on the stove, though. Then a year later the earthquake came and all my memories of this tragedy were replaced by the horrors of the earthquake. I had to actively research San Juanico as an adult to understand what had happened.
Just an fyi, it's pronounced like "San Juaniko"
Very interesting, I definitely hadn't heard of this accident before.
"Somewhat lacking in safety features." 😂
Love all your Videos. Always look forward to them. Great detail, narration, and overall addictive content. Never even heard of 90% of these heavy events in history. Thanks for being them to light. Keep up the good work🙂👍
"Somewhat lacking in safety features . . ." That is one of the most eloquent pieces of understatement I've ever heard in my life.
You could very well do a mini series on all the disasters Pemex have been involved in over the years or alledged to have been involved in. IMO one of the reasons this isn't well known is both Bhopal and the 1985 Mexico City earthquake happened and both overshadowed the Pemex explosion however.
Write a book
I’ve never heard of this. Thank you for bringing it to the public’s attention.
May they rest in peace. Thank you.
I enjoy the quality service received each visit to PEMEX stations
You're paying through the nose for it.
How absolutely terrifying! Thank you for sharing, I hadn't heard of this before. I can't imagine what those victims went through.🙏🙏🙏
The biggest disaster most people haven't heard of is also the worst industrial accident (and third worst flood) ever: Banqiao Dam.
In 1975 it failed, setting off a chain reaction which then destroyed dozens of other dams. In the end, it made millions of people homeless and killed *at least* 25,000.
But this occurred in China, so getting information about it is still difficult.
Some of the USCSB videos pronounce BLEVE as a single word like B-LEV-EE
I've heard it pronounced this way as well.
To allow housing to be built so close to the plant was criminal. Not have even rudimentary safety feature meant the negligent should have been held to account but I'm sure that never happened.
Here in México this housing was without any regulation.
First, the surrounded area of the plant was occupied by people that emigrated from rural places to the Mexico City Metropolitan Area. The houses were selfmaded.
Often plants, airports, racetracks and the like are intentionally built out from towns to avoid problems, but often the towns grow to encompass them. Sometimes the new residents who knew what was already there complain enough to get those places closed down when it was their own fault for the problem affecting them. Governments don't care about anything until it might cost somebody the next election, then they choose whatever solution will get them the most votes.
I remember my dad telling me about this acouple months ago. He saw it in the news on the day it happened
@bdphotog6785 as if it was very important to us in the first place, a disaster happening in other side of the country
My dad saw this live on television. He was apart of the 85 Mexico Earthquake too. He's told so many stories of both incidents and many many more.
Excellent coverage of the Pemex catastrophe; for anyone who wants to know more about BLEVE accidents, I recommend the books of Trevor Kletz, a trailblazing British safety engineer who passed away a few years ago.
Very nice and well informative video!
Thanks for bringing us this unknown case, Raven's Eye 👍
Back in the early 1990`s footage of this disaster was used in a safety induction that I participated in. The plant that I worked at had a potential blast radius of five kilometers and the nearest town was two kilometers away. That plant at that time also was somewhat lacking in safety features. The pilot reporting the initial explosion would have been thinking a war had started.
Always look forward to your videos 👏🏾
In November 1984 I was recovering from being burned in a domestic propane explosion and I don't remember this news story, so, you are right about it disappearing into oblivion.
Before I moved away frequently watched the huge Gas Tankers sailing up the River Medway to the Isle of Grain. The son of an old friend was a River Pilot , when one of those ships came in all other river traffic had to stop .
Much has been written and discussed about the S.S.Montgomery a sunken ammunition ship off Sheerness and the aftermath if it were to explode , which would be worse a gas tanker or 5000 tonnes of bombs.
On the 27th May 1915 HMS Princess Irene blew-up in Sheerness harbour whilst being loaded with mines , 350 crew were killed as well as many locals .
You never know !!
Thank you for another tragic disaster revealed. Very sad... but some lessons learned, hopefully! May the victims RIP
Great work on this and all your productions. I was alive at that time and yet never heard of it.
always love your videos, little snippets of history I have usually never heard about before.
Pemex also played a part in the 1992 explosions in Guadalajara.
Excellent channel. Live long and prosper.
Nice find, you are correct that it's a more rare/unknown one. Listen to a podcast and watch a lot of these disaster videos and at least I was unaware of it.
I recall hearing about this explosion, but no details. The information presented is much appreciated. Worth noting is that San Juanico, also known as San Juan Ixhuatepec, isn't a town or township. Neither of those exist in Mexico, and San Juanico is actually a locality within the Municipality of Tlalnepantla de Baz.
It's about TIME that someone make a video about this! :D I've become interested in this tragedy, thanks to a documentary uploaded on YT; it's called "The Day The Sky Caught Fire". You guys should check it out. :-) And it's narrated by none other than the great Orson Welles in, what I believe, is his very last role.
Anyway, your video on this is very well-done, & I'd love to see other disaster-themed channels cover the topic more. :-) Great job! ❤
Lunch time upload!
Very interesting subject. Thanks for the upload!
Very informative. Thanks.
"Babe wake up! New Ravens Eye just dropped!"
This sounds like absolute hell on earth, couldn’t imagine being within proximity of this disaster.
Excellent.
Mr. Raven, I’ve been riding with you for a while and consider you one of the BEST storytellers on the Tube.
You know it’s a huge coincidence, I was going to comment that if you ever decide to start a Patreon, I’d join in a heartbeat.
Well, you just got yourself a Patreon supporter, my Brother!
And I’m more than proud to support you.
Brilliant! Thank you, it is very much appreciated.
@@theravenseye9443 thank you!
How in the utterly gobsmackingly fook did they not shut off the inlet valve?! 🤦♂️🤷♂️ .... i can just imagine taking a walk around a chemical plant pre 1990 and being more than a little shocked at the lack of safety measures in place.
I've had the privilege of working at a high end plant that (luckily for me) didn't focus on just 1 product.. we were the guys you come and ask for solutions to a problem you've encountered and need chemical engineers. It was BEYOND fascinating! .. and safety was taken SO seriously that we were very proud of our relatively clean record.
I'll never understand shareholders and CEO's etc not taking workers safety seriously.. like _oh yeah, there's Billy. He's the best at was he does, we've spent 100's of 1000's of pounds on his training.. he's perfect at it now and production is breaking records. Now let's look the other way when they say they need to be safe.."_
Very thorough and comprehensive! The site/town should be pronounced as ‘San Juaniko’, not ‘San Juaniso’.
Thank you for not showing photos of the aftermath from the magazine "La Alarma".
Yes - those photos really do bring home the true awfulness of what happened, but they are very upsetting to see. I try to keep my videos informative and hopefully get across the tragedy, without having to use the "worst" photos....
It was just "Alarma!". And yes, all whose saw it, never will forget...
Man, I'm mexican and I didn't know about this, but it doesn't surprise me, Pemex has never been a very efficient company, and, due to being a legal monopoly, to this day it costs the state billions of pesos a year just to keep it afloat.
If anything the company should be keeping the government afloat.
Pitiful
EMergency
EXample.
Good report, thanks.
Bravo Zulu on correctly pronouncing Mexicano. You might be the first British person I’ve ever heard correctly pronounce a Spanish word.
Jajaja 🙃
The Spanish aren't too good at pronouncing English words, so...
I was in Mexico in the 1980's and they had a H2S blowout in Tamaulipas that killed two crews of oil workers.
Quality content, as always.
Thank you. Well covered. Notes on sources of photos and footage were also very appreciated. New subscriber.
Havent heard about this disaster until now.
damn its crazy
I saw this couple of years back. It was discussed while explaining the Pemex Guadalajara story Sorry. Still watched it again
I'd heard of this one, but I didn't know how bad it was. Putting houses next to a facility like that...sheesh, that's madness!
Thought it was a nuclear explosion well it was 1984 after all. I remember those times.
Wow! Talk about a nightmare! 😮And the aftermath was disgusting, with nobody being held properly accountable 😢. RIP too all the unknown victims. They will be missed. 😮😢
Thanks for making this video. It’s quite an extraordinary story, and a wonder that it isn’t better known
They didn't learned their lesson, because until recent years, Pemex was the only oil company operating in Mexico, now that there are more companies, they will need to do something.
I could hear the explosions from
My bedroom. They woke me up. The flames could be seen and we lived many km away.
I feel a PEMEX cock-ups follow up videos are needed after watching this. I'm also glad a memorial is in place despite all the sweeping under the carpet going on in the aftermath.
I hadn't heard of this awful tragedy; I shudder at the thought of all the bur injuries of survivors, in particular. Excellent video but I must admit I'm curious as to what the Pan-Am pilot did after reporting what appeared to be a nuclear explosion as he came in to land - did he elect to divert to another airport? I can't imagine not aborting the landing when you think you've just seen a nuclear explosion.
That same year 1984, there was a massive explosion in a small town in Brazil. A gasoline pipeline ruptured, leaking petroleum into a creek bed that also served as the town's sewer. The fumes from the gas found an ignition source from one of the homes and the entire village erupted in flames, killing over 500 residents.
Here in Mexico was a real big new story even a rock band named el tri made a song about the San Juanico explotion
Love this channel
New Ravens Eye and X-Men 97 in the same week? We are truely blessed.
That person in the white pickup truck at the end seemed to not know that reversing or uturning was an option
Surprising how many events we never heard we actually heard of.
To understand the rich history of safety failures by Pemex (short for Petróleos Mexicanos), it must be understood that it's 100% state-owned, like USPS and Amtrak are in the U.S. Having a legal monopoly on fossil fuel extraction, refining, and sale in Mexico, the people who run Pemex have only political pressure and conscience-no profit motive-incentivizing them to do better. The CEO is appointed by politicians and any profit goes to the Mexican treasury. Its executive suite is a source of lucrative patronage positions with which politicians have paid off their friends. Their primary competition consists of the bicycle and walking shoe industries, so they're not very concerned with keeping their customers _wanting_ to do business with them. It also means that trying to recover damages from Pemex in court is basically the same as trying to recover them from the Mexican state. As it does everywhere, the law serves the state more than any other party.
Note: Amtrak is not 100% state-owned and the United States Postal Service is not a monopoly; thus, neither is an entirely fair comparison with Pemex, which is both.
😂 “profit” Pemex is $100 billion in debt, you don’t even understand your own reasons for speaking out against them 😂 as though any of the average people in Mexico would have gotten a penny from the extraction of their countries oil 🙄
@@ZGryphonthey rewrote the constitution in 2013 and have been trying to privatize the industry ever since, which has caused nationwide unrest, protests and riots like when the government stopped subsidizing the cost of oil and it rose 20%😂
@@ZGryphon USPS has a legal monopoly on regular mail service. You can only compete with them on parcels and express mail.
@@HiDefHDMusic Just about every big business has debt. Having debt doesn't mean a business never turns a profit. You don't have the slightest clue what you're talking about. As if not a single "average" Mexican would get a job working at an oil extraction business in Mexico and the Mexican government would charge no royalties.
Your pronunciation of Spanish is spicy and correct!
Great video, thanks for sharing
Theres a Mexican rock group called El Tri that dedicated the song San Juanico to this disaster, the lyrics are very moving.
Compare this disaster to the 1988 PEPCON disaster which had the advantage of occuring out in the desert ( at the time) claiming only 2 lives ( a supervisor and disabled person at PEPCON who couldnt evacuate fast enough) even though their product, rocket fuel, produced a massive explosion- caught on camera from a nearby mountain.
I grew up in Mexico at the very end of the one party dictatorship it had for decades and I knew about the monopoly PEMEX had until relatively recently, I may have heard of this incident but I’ve never known the details though.
A tank with an overpressurization relief valve will not detonate as long as the internal temperature and pressure do not exceeed the rate at which the valve can vent the container. If that happens though, and if the outer walks are damaged by heat or physical activity impact the tank can fail explosively.
Oh, it was a hot time in the old town that day. That was quite a boom banger. They heard that one clear down the road, Johhny. That rattled your windows & shook your walls. Good bye, baby, so long, honey, farewell Mary Lou. So long, its been nice to know ya!
_I fell into a burnin' ring of fire_
_I went down, down, down_
_And the flames went higher_
_And it burns, burns, burns_
_The ring of fire, the ring of fire_
those explosions are pronounced "BLEVY" and that word should send chills down the spines of any industrial worker and emergency responder. It doesn't take alot of stuff either, Ive seen video of "empty" fuel tanker trucks that go off like that cause while there is less fluid in the tank, it heats up that much more quickly and blows when the metal is fatigued by heat.
I remember seeing this on a top 10 list before, like this and some chinese fireworks explosion were the top two.
I knew about this, seems like I remember knowing about it when it happened, same as Bopal. I was about 10 years old and watched the news as much as I did cartoons.
Hello Mr Raven. I have been watching the great videos but have not commented lately. It is awful how these large companies downplay the numbers of dead and injured. I can no longer see the buy me a coffee icon, can you help?
Hello Stuart F - the link is in the description. Cheers bud!
Never heard of this either. Can you please do the Toronto propane explosion or the Hagersville tire fire?
Greed, 'what safety procedures?', corruption.......The list goes on. And is still there.
Beyond horrific.
Have you come across the Sunderland Victoria Hall disaster? I just read about it and was horrified.
I saw the aftermath of the Algerian gas liquidification plant Skikda in 2004, scary stuff.
It is sad that 500 to 700 people died in this disaster . RIP TO ALL .
Holy hell - that's a lot of boom.
Seeing one of those spherical tanks on fire at 7:15 is scary, that one with fire up under it and jetting flames is a helluva BLEVE in the making.
13:08 the poor SOB in the white truck! Shoulda backed up, with a quickness. Can't blame them though. They were probably frozen in fear/disbelief. EDIT: OMG I just noticed the dude running across the street in front of the truck! That poor person. All the poor victims...