3 dead in Mexico maternity hospital blast


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Gas explosions are EVIL. About 3 years ago a furniture store 3 miles from here blew and it took out an entire block. Shook the hell out of our house.

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/01/29/world/mexico-explosion/index.html

3 dead in Mexico maternity hospital blast

(CNN) At least three people have died after an explosion Thursday at a hospital southwest of Mexico City, civil protection officials said.

The maternity hospital is on the verge of collapsing after a natural gas explosion, emergency officials said. At least 54 people are injured, including 22 children, Mexico City Mayor Miguel Angel Mancera said. An unknown number of people are trapped.

A truck was supplying gas to the hospital when apparently a hose burst and the resulting leak caused an explosion, Mancera said.

One man and two women -- all adults -- were killed, the mayor said.

At least eight people were seriously injured, he said.

The Red Cross reported that it provided 23 ambulances and more than 40 rescuers to the efforts. The agency said it transported nine babies to area hospitals.

Many others were being treated for cuts from flying glass after the blast, he said.

The Cuajimalpa Maternal Hospital is located on the southwest outskirts of Mexico City. It was founded in 1993 and is part of the city's government health system.

Photos from the scene show that the gas truck belongs to Gas Express Nieto, a natural gas provider among the four biggest gas distributors in Mexico, according to the company.

Gas Express did not immediately comment on the explosion. Its Twitter account is private and its Facebook page appeared to have been taken offline.

One of the city's publicly accessible webcams captured the blast, showing a plume of smoke rising from the direction of the hospital.

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Come up with an alternative? The only viable one is a modern Gen IV reactor design that can be mass produced and deployed, likely a molten salt reactor, but then the enviros and NIMBY's get mental. Geothermal has problems as well, especially among the anti-frackers. Solar and wind don't generate enough power for lighting AND electric heating in northern latitudes.

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Solar deployed locally + nuclear + other renewables where it makes sense could meet all our energy demands (not talking about politics, just economy and physics). Actually it has to, before the earth turns into an oven and oceans into acid baths, or we just deplete our commercially viable reserves of hydrocarbons. 

 

Speaking of northern latitudes, we've been doing fine on almost all renewable energy in Quebec since the 70s, and we still sell huge surpluses to our neighbors. Admitedly not every northern country can or should deploy as much hydro as we did.

 

But really, hydrocarbons are a terrible source of energy. Hundreds of thousands of car fires annually in the US, how many millions of casualties worldwide due to smog, how many environmental disasters due to leaks and spills, accidental explosions of all kinds such as this one, acidification of oceans jeopardizing most marine life, nevermind global climate change - we're paying a huge price already and it's nothing compared to the debt we're leaving to future generations.

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The northern US has a much higher population and structure count than Quebec, so solutions there are not necessarily transferable.

Our area is lucky because we're largely served by an 1,198 MW nuclear plant, and another 1,550 MW unit is planned.

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