Chicago Tribune
PIEDRAS NEGRAS, Mexico — A truck carrying ammonium nitrate to a mine caught fire after a highway crash and blew up, killing at least 28 people and injuring about 150, state and federal officials reported Monday.
Authorities said two trucks smashed into each other Sunday night on a busy highway in northern Mexico. Shortly after a crowd of onlookers and emergency officials arrived, the wreckage caught fire; the ammonium nitrate exploded, sending a ball of fire into the sky that consumed nearby cars and left a 10-by-40-foot crater in the road.
It was unclear what caused the initial crash.
"Everyone who was a witness ... is dead," said a federal police official, Alejandro Gonzalez.
Most of victims were families returning home after spending Sunday at nearby swimming pools. The force of the blast blew out the windows of a passenger bus about a quarter-mile away.
The truck was carrying 25 tons of ammonium nitrate from an Orica Ltd. explosives plant in Monclova, police said.
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