Pemex has... quite the history, to say the least. Here's another story about a huge disaster connected to one of their facilities: th-cam.com/video/q6D1vuFswoI/w-d-xo.html
Hi FH - watching your videos inspired me to start my own channel 3 years ago...and I just reached 100K subs!! I covered this one a couple of months ago, great minds think alike? Thanks for the inspiration. All the best.
They're infamous here in Mexico as well, so much greed and corruption, some say the country is worse off with it existing, it's just an excuse for people of power to gobble money
Mexican chemical engineer here,my Industrial Safety professor did work for Pemex at the time. Issue was very well known and actually reported days prior, a minor gas leak from one of the main containers. The person in charge was on holiday and nobody was left to cover for him
I knew about this tragedy, why in 1996 there was an explosion again in San Juanico. It was smaller than the one in the 80's, but I remember how the house shook and the glass thundered. While we were eating, the adults began to say:"San Juanico is exploding again! We have to pack our bags in case we have to Let's go!..." and I grew up believing that it was normal for gas deposits to explode from time to time, when the problem that plagues Mexico is corruption! Thanks for this video, it gives voice of remmembrace for those wo are lost
Honestly, you're probably better off believing that that way you're always ready to move out if it does happen As opposed to not believing something serious is happening and staying there in spite of the warnings
@@EtzeneuerD16 I wouldn't consider that a disadvantage in any way. To be honest, when the world turns to s*** I imagine you'll last longer than a week. You'd be surprised how many millions won't
"The Mexican government has investigated the disaster at the Mexican government owned LPG plant and found that the Mexican government to have done nothing wrong" just perfectly sums it up.
Pressure Release Valves you said??? Let gas escape, our gas paid with our $$$??? Shut that stinking (literally lol) gas valve ASAP! Believe me there are people who think that way, not only in Mexico
What I like best about Fascinating Horror's productions is that you remind people that these things happen. You tell the story, lay out the facts, and don't try and overdo it with over dramatic music and emotional tones and phrases. It makes the horror of the event more powerful and, you might say, more fascinating.
I agree, absolutely. He keeps the mood solemn but not dark and gloomy. He's respectful. States the good and the bad with an even tone. Love his style as well!👻
It's what good old-fashioned journalism used to sound like. Watch or listen to the 11/22/63 JFK assassination videos/tapes compared to 7/13's attempt on Pres. Trump.
I had forgotten about it since it was almost 40 years ago. It was really tragic. The smell was horrible. I remember bringing sandwiches to Gadalupe Virgen Basílica. Tlalnepantla where San Juanico neighborhood is located is part the urban zone of Mexico City; although it’s a different state I’d say it is the same city. Pemex was the Mexican Government’s monopoly and, thus plagued with corruption. M.R. Beteta, Pemex’s general director (CEO) should’ve been held accountable for negligence and active hampering of rescue and investigation; but he was a high ranking PRI (State Party) official.
1:42 "potentially dangerous leak" I asked my regional natural gas provider why they didnt have a non-emergrncy line to report smelling natural gas. The employee said if you smell a leak, it's an emergency.
I was once walking and saw a fire pillar. I couldn't see the whole picture due to vegetation in my line of sight, but I knew that there's a propane place in the area and it was fire season. I called 911 and told the dispatcher about what I'm seing, it turned out that was supposed to be happening (I don't remember what she said it was though). I got the feeling I was not the only one to call it in.
@@jed-henrywitkowski6470 Hence the vegetation to be less visible. You don’t want to know what they are really up to! 🤔 now that I think of it there sure quite a bit more prone to allergies, asthma, COPD in none smokers, neurodivergence…than there was even in the 80’s and early 90’s.
natural gas doesnt smell, before the 1960s millions died in gas leaks, it was decided to add a strong smell to gas for safety. My dad works as an adviser on what was termed the North Sea Gas Conversion Project. Every building in the UK and Europe had to have their supply & equipment modified...every domestic house...it took years but now gas stinks and it has saved millions of lives.
Can we all appreciate the bravery of the firefighters that risked their lives cooling down the tanks, knowing full well they could explode at any second ?
@@omargjuarez1 clearly you have no education in this room. But firefighters often go into fires, knowing for well that they could explode or be severely harmed and still do it. Tell me that’s an idiot who sits in a desk all day without telling me.
Ah, Pemex. The petroleum company with Disaster stamped all over it. Not only were Pemex responsible for this catastrophe, but the Guadalajara disaster too. And Pemex seemed very good at blaming other people and companies for the disasters they created. And building a memorial park while human remains were still being discovered during its construction removed any honour in respect of the victims. Utterly shameful
A series on what PEMEX has done, I agree! But also a series of state owned corporations... all types, not only petrochemical/chemical... and the disasters and lives lost by them. Probably no nation on earth escapes this type of truancy, government one that is
@@RebeccaCampbell1969 I agree and I don’t live far from where a house exploded from an uncapped gas line which our local gas company was responsible for - I believe there was two fatalities and a handful of injuries.
Having fought two POL fires and surviving a BLEVE that melted our fire truck to the ground, I have always appreciated your videos as they are very well done and on point. I glad your hard work has made your channel grow.
Holy shit man. I am a volunteer firefighter, got my FFI & FFII, thankfully I've not had to experience something like this. Would you share the story? I'd love to hear about it and if there's anything that can be learned to share with my department to keep our guys alive in a situation like this. Thanks and best wishes.
I could be entirely wrong on this, but I suspect that with his views he makes enough money for a living and build some savings, so he doesn't strictly need more money and thus he doesn't do sponsors. I very much respect that if that's the case, as many people do do them and then start living more luxuriously.
@@MarcelVos Wouldn't they be demonetized automatically anyway since the topics always involve death and stuff? idk how intense youtubes monetization is these days
I must tell You that this hellish accident was broadcasted LIVE. No edition, no cuts. Reporter went through the now charred homes just with microphone and a cameraman. Two pictures remain with me: a couple embraced on a bed, they look like pompeyean remains, and a horse very still, with burned skin, and the only thing that has life was it's eyes
That is just so disrespectful. But what do we expect. The press always want to be the first to show their viewers and get those big, big ratings. If it bleeds, it leads!!
@@cuddlepaws4423 it was a different time. A sensacionalist tabloid , infamous and now extint, published a "special" number. Lots of graphic photos. Exposed in the street to the casual sight. We, as children, were constante exposed to the worst of human Nature. Traumatic, yes, but now we have an iron stomach (and more issues than Vogue).
@@cuddlepaws4423This was in 1985 when Mexican television was dominated by Televisa and to a lesser extent by the Imevision Network, both de facto controlled by the government. It's surprising at all they didn't try to censor the horrors, by this point the government was doing everything to suppress criticism of the ruling party And of course opposition media fully exploited the carnage for both ratings and to rip into the government for their negligence..
I remember my dad talking about booking a hotel in Mexico city and when they got there discovering that it was right across the street from a giant Pemex gas station that had such lax safety that you could smell the fumes and see the distorted air from all the spilled gas from their room. They moved to a different hotel because they were getting headaches and didn't feel at all safe, and this would have been within a year of the LPG plant explosion.
I have been a volunteer firefighter for about 40 years (joined up in April 1984) and ended up as a Senior volunteer officer. This was one of our training "films" for BLEVE incidents, probably in the late 1980s. Still today SERIOUS SCAREY STUFF. Several photos of the Firefighters shown here remind me of the dangers we face.
As a retired Firefighter, let me tell you a BLEVE is no joke! I saw a regular electric water heater shoot straight up from a basement, through the three stories above it, through the attic and then the roof. It landed ~ 200 feet away even after depositing all that energy into the levels of wood it blew straight through. This was all just from steam. It sounded like a bomb, then a missile, then a bomb again when it hit the ground. We found out later that the homeowner had removed a leaking pressure relief valve with just a blank cap. It was able to build up massive amounts of pressure that it usually would have been able to blow off.
sadly, prior to the relief valve being added in the 1940s this was common place occurance on water heaters. an older trick to prevent such was to connect the toilet refill line to the hot water instead of the cold service line in attempt to mitigate pressure build up.
The water heater rocket is still one of the most impressive things ever done on Mythbusters. When they did it with no structure and just out on the runway it hit an estimated 500ft before it came back down. I remember they revisited once and built a simulated 2 story structure over it and it just had no Fs to give about structure. I have heard in the past some actual water heaters attempting to be a space program have actually shifted homes on their foundations.
@@filanfyretracker *some actual water heaters attempting to be a space program* the formulation is really hilarious ! I can almost see a young water heater telling its parents : Mom! I wanna be an astronaut ! PS I also thought about the Mythbuster's episode - that was soo cool !
Usually memorials to the dead in these situations are a kind gesture, but creating one that holds up the “nothing to see here” card while being built over the still-smoldering rubble of former homes is absolutely disgusting.
Se construyó rapidamente en parte para ocultar evidencias, y en parte para evitar focos de infección. El video no lo cuenta, pero se construyó tambien una fosa común para al menos 90 - 100 cadaveres no reconocidos o reclamados, en una extensión improvisada del cementerio local. Amigos que viven no muy lejos cuentan historias de los gritos o sonidos extraños que se llegan a escuchar en las madrugadas por ese lugar.
@@IndridCold-v7i Si lo creo, me suena a todo los que sucede en Tlatelolco con tanta tragedia. Que forma tan fea de irse y que forma tan fea de ser enterrado, la verdad.
Tragedies that take the lives of many people continue to happen, and many of them are forgotten. It's really good to be able to remember them again with a video like this.
@@dlwhdtjr100 If you don't know your history, you're doomed to repeat it so it's good that people are reminded of these things. That way they don't have to happen again
The first time I heard about this horrible tragedy I was 23 (I'm now 29). I'm from Mexico as well and the only reason I guess I heard about it is because I moved to CDMX to study and some lady who grew up close to San Juanico mentioned once. But I did not know the details, just that it had been a horrible explosion. F+cking government did a good job covering it up.
Cierto que se promovió desde los gobiernos priistas no habla de San Juanico, ve el tamaño dea tragedia y los del Estado de México siguieron votando por el PRI 😮💨
We had a smaller version of this happen at an acetylene plant in Dallas in 2007. We saw the fire and smoke. When the cannisters started blowing up and launching 1/4 mile away we high tailed it out of the area. The cannisters were landing on a major highway that runs through town. Amazing no commuters were hit by debris.
I was visiting relatives in Midlothian @ the time & had planned to visit a friend @ SMU Football that day. I postponed the visit until the next day when things had calmed down somewhat.
The reason for this is that Pemex at the time provided like 50% of the whole country's revenue. Even "the worst industrial disaster in History" as FH states in the video could not make the government care, it was more important for them to keep Pemex running as usual.
That same year in 1984 there was another disaster involving a facility leaking fuel and destroying a village in Brazil. The incident killed over 500 people.
According to sources, in Cubatao, Brazil, about 30 miles southeast of Sao Paulo, was Vila Soco favela. About 9,000 residents built makeshift homes on adjacent property owned by Petrobas refineries, a state run company. The company had fuel lines that ran next to the dwellings, including sewerage and drainage ditches. Employees accidentally allowed gas to enter the wrong pipeline to the drainage and leak into the town. Around midnight, a massive explosion leveled the entire village. Whole families were wiped out.
Maybe for some but I'm fairly certain the ones closest to the explosions didn't feel a thing.. They would have died before their brains had time to tell their bodies that anything even happened, so they likely died happy, content, or whatever they were feeling in the moment and they definitely didn't suffer any pain. Still very tragic though and i hope their loved ones were able to properly grieve. I also hope injured survivors were able to heal and move on with their lives too. This one is intense! 💔💔💔
@@bubzilla6137 por desgracia no muchos tuvieron esa suerte de "irse" sin sentir nada. Hay muchos testimonios y fotos de gente con la piel derretida, quemaduras de tercer grado huyendo por la carretera que une la zona con la ciudad de Mexico o caminando sin rumbo en total shock. Lo mas parecido serían las descripciones de los sobrevivientes de Hiroshima. Varios amigos siguen viviendo no muy lejos de ahi y me han contado cosas peores.
@@IndridCold-v7i First, for those who don't read Spanish, neither do I, this really sucked because it was tedious. Not sure why that translate function wasn't here but oh well. It was well worth it! The following is the message above, to which I will reply: Unfortunately, not many were lucky enough to "leave" without feeling anything. There are many testimonies and photos of people with melted skin and third-degree burns fleeing along the highway that connects the area with Mexico City or walking aimlessly in total shock. The closest thing would be the descriptions of the Hiroshima survivors. Several friends still live not far from there and have told me worse things. My response: That's wild! I hope your friends are doing as well as can be expected under the circumstances. Thank you for sharing! 🙂💙 And in case this person doesn't read English and the YT translator is still absent, here's the Spanish translation: Mi respuesta: ¡Eso es salvaje! Espero que a tus amigos les vaya tan bien como se puede esperar dadas las circunstancias. ¡Gracias por compartir! 🙂💙
I’ve been following this channel for a long time, and have always appreciated the calm details given without dramatic inflections. But this time sir, you have surpassed your standard. Excellently paced narration, primary background given to acquaint us with necessary information, including all measurements in metres/feet etc. Where possible, names of individuals are recorded with respect at the end. Thank you for all your hard work.
My father was a foreman at an lpg plant in Scotland. As part of his training, he was shown films of such plants exploding, producing 100ft fireballs. Fortunately, he was a conscientious and careful man and never had to experience an accident like this one. It must have been a terrifying and dreadful event.
When the gas plant exploded it was at 5:00 am, and it looked like dawn had broken, rumbling the earth for several miles around. That was the size of the explosion.
My family had his house some 3 miles away from the explosion site, I remember my granny telling us that the heat could be felt even at such distance, as back in the day they were not many buildings. She also told us about the people who got turned into carbon on their homes, cars or streets. It was such a horrible thing and I just learned there was sin international investigation, that’s never been told it happened, the story goes as “Yeah well, it happened, but it was the people fault for living there!”
No me sorprende lo que cuentas, obvio el gobierno haciendose pendejos, viendo a quien le echan la culpa. La familia de mi mama vivian en GAM, casi en la Basilica. Me conto que alcanzo a ver la luz desde su ventana.
Many TH-cam content creators can produce a high quality highly interesting highly informative video sometimes, but its TH-camrs that produce CONSISTENTLY good videos like this that will survive and (hopefully) thrive. Thanks for the consistency.
I love the video and images you use. It's always helpful to see photos of the event and examples of what you're describing. Thank you for all the care you put into creating these!
I like that he doesn't use AI images or unrelated images/sounds to "enhance" things. It bothers me when creators do that. This channel might only have a few images to go along with each story, but they are more effective than "random guy grabbing his hair" or "shot of a plane for no reason."
Same ! I miss when it used to be louder. In the older videos you could hear the music the whole time. I just love hearing it giving the stories an eerie feeling.
Thank you for explaining BLEVEs. I feel it is a somewhat unknown contributor to many of the large explosions in disasters. It’s one reason commercial tanks have a pressure relief valve. It’s usually better to vent gas and delay (or possibly prevent) a BLEVE as it can pose a smaller hazard or lessen the impact of an incident. Also, even if the vented gas plume catches fire, the chance of that flame causing the tank to explode is considerably small. Burning vent gas doesn’t enter the atmosphere unburned and pose a hazard elsewhere. This is why ruptured natural gas lines that catch fire (and don’t endanger people or exposures) are usually allowed to burn freely until the gas is turned off. I have included a lot of generalizations here because there are situations that usual practices are not the best choice. Lastly, the average person usually has something with the potential for a BLEVE in their own home. A garage fire can create one from a metal can of gasoline, the propane cylinder for your gas grille, and the little metal cylinders of gas for camp stoves.
l'm not sure you clearly got it. BLEVEs are caused when applying an external fire to a presurized vessel; never from within on its own. A pressure relief valve's objective is that as stated in its name, and it engages when pressure rises above 250+ psi, as in a faulty overfilling operation (roughly reaching 90% tank capacity). Mentioning the "absense" of PR valves in this case is rather useless, for if the tank is already on fire to the point the PF valves engage (with a major flame) then explosion is imminent; it's intrinsecally not a device to save a tank from a BLEVE. BTW is proper to mention it's extremely unlike that these tanks lacked PR valves but rather lacked maitenance. Since they aim up, they're prone to storing dirt, wich in time accumulates and clogs up springs and release mechanisms
Fire suppression not working or turned off, missing pressure valves, and continued pumping fuel into the site for an hour... I can't decide if it's gross negligence, gross incompetence, or deliberate (insurance job?).
🌹I like the mood you set for each story. The seriousness of the calamity is felt immediately. You don't over dramatize. You give the necessary history to set the story up. You share facts with the sources where they came from. Also photos from the scene, if possible. 🌹I've been a subscriber for probably 7 years now. Have loved every minute! 🌹THANK YOU for a job consistently well done!🏆🏅
Fascinating Horror is the only channel that gets my thumbs up as soon as I hit play. The next bad video I see on this channel will be the FIRST bad video I've ever seen on this channel.
Fun fact: you're still not allowed to take an LPG vehicle through the Eurotunnel...says a lot about how "safe" it is 😬 Love this channel. Concise but detailed, with a focus on the human cost and lessons learned, rather that the pure drama. Always excellent content. Superb.😊
There is a short tunnel on I-71 in downtown Cincinnati that's had a hazmat ban as long as I can remember, well over 40 years! Granted, the euro tunnel is considerably longer, but it shows that the powers that be know how dangerous stuff like LPG can be.
@@fluffyfourthey are not banned , it just fruit and veg which is of inferior quality has to be sold as such. Malformed stuff can be sold but you have to know what you are getting. Do you have a problem with this?
Your videos have been consistently well-researched, professional and simply excellent. Among several things, I appreciate that there is no annoying, dramatic background music.
I’ve been a subscriber for a couple of years now, thank you for maintaining your respectful commentary and exceptional research! You NEVER disappoint 😊
I really wish parents didn’t threaten their kids with made up eternal torture, especially for totally normal, innocent child behaviour. Depending on how intense the parents are in their odd beliefs, they can end up giving their kids a complex!
@ChaosMagnet problem is for those people it isn't made up, they believe that. They still shouldn't threaten the kids with it because they aren't the one who makes that decision anyway. In some faiths I am pretty sure you can condemn yourself by doing it to another person.
There's actually a song that tells the story of this disaster by the bad "El Tri", it kinda crazy that this incident isn't more well known outside of mexico
Yeah, that song was released in 1985, and after narrating the disaster it ends with the kind of moral conventional for ballads -- thank God for your life, because death could come any time -- but in the middle of the song, with a different stanza structure, is this verse: Ahora quieren convertir en parque Ese lugar Ya que esta ahogado el niño Ahora el poso Quieren tapar Mejor que indemnicen A los que se quedaron sin hogar Y que intensifiquen las medidas de seguridad (Now they want to make a park out of that place -- Now that the child has drowned they want to put a cover on the well [a proverb] -- Better they should compensate those left homeless, and intensify safety measures)
Thank you for your hard work in researching, as well as creating, these informative videos. Not only are they Always interesting, the historical retelling of specific incidents provide pertinent insight to these tragic and often avoidable disasters. I for one appreciate this very much!
My father told me that when he was twelve years old, while he was waiting for the school bus, he was playing soccer with his friends in his garden when suddenly explosions were heard and mushroom clouds were coming out. Greetings from Tlalnepantla, Mexico
San Juanico is in a hill, I live on a town at the base of the hill, my mom was in middle school when that happened and the school was asked to volunteer students to aid a portion of the displaced, she says the air smelled like burnt hair for days, that some of the kinda identifiable bodies were placed in a local basketball court, she says it was terrifying. She told me she woke up to the explosion, it should've been dark outside but the explosion made the whole sky light up, she was told by some of the affected that when the tank blew up so did the pipes of local use that run under the streets and connect to each home, it was ignited underground and that made the pavement so hot it melted everyone's shoes and eventually feet while they ran to safety. Truly horrifying.
Hey man, I just wanted to let you know you’ve been a lunch break staple of mine for a year or so now. They’re the perfect little bite of info, and fit perfectly into my 30 minute breaks. Thanks for being one of the high points of my work day!
I am from Mexico, I still remember that morning when people were calling local radio stations asking for help and telling the horrors they had seen. Your video helps us to not forget what can happen due to corruption and carelessness. Thank you!
I was a young girl living in Mexico City when this happened, I still remember the stories in the news and taking blankets and food to help the displaced. Less than one year later, on Semtember 19th, 1985, the big earthquake hit Mexico City, people were just recovering from the San Juanico incident when this second tragedy occured. I just seemed like a nightmare
I used to live about 3 miles from San Juanico when I was a kid, and I saw from home a flame that went up into the sky, it was like a giant lighter flame, it was 6 am and it was usually dark and cold around that time of the year, Trough my window i could see it was bright as if the sun was shining bright, I quickly waked up and washed my face and combed my hair, as I was "late" for school, I heard my mom calling me to go up to the roof, where I saw debris in the flame going up, huge pieces of metal were launched into the air, and fall in a radius of around 1 mile. we had no school for 15 days, and the news were grim, what I remember is that it was warm and bright with lots of people injured and many died. The zone has been rebuilt and Gas plants are still working, at first most people fled the zone and lots of families moved out, today memories of that has been forgotten, and people are living again too close to the zone...
That must have been terrifying. I wasn't born yet, but my family lives a few miles from San Juanico and my grandparents, my mom ,and my aunt told us how hot the windows felt and they thought it was an earthquake.
Mi mamá me conto algo parecido, ellos vivian en la GAM, mu cerca de la basilica. Que vio la luz, se sento en la cama y despertó a su hermana, que vieron la luz bajar despues.
Unfortunately, LPG is more dangerous than other fuels since it is heavier than air so does not dissipated. If a leak occurs the gas travels along the ground until it finds an ignition source and an explosion is inevitable.
I co-worker of mine who used to live near San Juanico told me when we met at work how devastating the explosion was. He could hardly speak for he was in shock but managed to tell me he saw people on fire running down the hills surrounding the area. Terrible thing!
Cuando nos encontramos. En situaciones como esas.los mexicanos.sacamos mucho valores yenfremtar y enfrentar otras adversidades. Com o el gasolinazo en san Luis potosi por el infortunio de ser he innorante como la mayoría del pueblo pues festejemos viva México cabrones.
Bleves are utterly terrifying. I watched some footage online of one a few years ago and basically if you ever see a large container venting like that then you have seconds to get as far away as possible. That venting is the safety valve on the 'pressure cooker', designed to buy you a little time to run like hell.
pressure reliev falves engage more frequently that you would imagine, all around the world. There are actually a few ways to immediately decompress a tank when these valves engage. What has to be guaranteed is that there should be no source for a spark in the area, namely electric wiring should be disengaged at the local board, or no combustion engines should be operating. No need for drama
Great information. I remember the event from adults and the news back then. I was an elementary school kid and a youngster when it exploded AGAIN in 1996. I remember the smoke plumes from the second event.
I was 15 years old when this disaster happened, my family and I lived in a neighborhood near San Juanico. Our house trembled during the explosions before dawn and my grandma who was awake at that hour, thought the windows glasses would brake. We heard the emergency vehicles all that week, day and night, neighbors organized to aid as much as they could, we were gathering clothes, water, medicines and many other stuff, but there were hundreds of people seriously burnt or dead carbonized on the streets or in their own houses. The authorities diminished the situation as common people complained about the gas odor one or two days prior the disaster. The government lied all the time, as it always does. Unfortunately, a similar situation repeated in Sector Reforma in Guadalajara, on April 15th, 1992, when people warns the authorities, but they say “Nothing happens, everything’s fine”. Yes, I blame the authorities. San Juanico GLP plant was built with the warning of no building neighborhoods at least 300m away, or more. This was ignored when the usual corruption attended more the income than safety, nothing new. And about the 10,000 dollars of compensation, I still ask… really? Mexican government never pays, otherwise, they charge you.
My grandfather worked very close to there. That day he left home late to work and that saved him. According to my mother, he only spoke once about what he saw that day. He said he saw people running engulfed in flames, leaving their skin stuck to the walls. Some tried to jump into the water to save themselves. My mom and my grandmother saw the explosion from home, they said that everything suddenly lit up as if it were day.
I am from Mexico. My mom was a little girl when this happened. She says it was very early in the morning and all of a sudden, no sunrise, the world came alight as if it was midday and the explosion made the glass windows of her house shake like there was a tremor.
La información es muy completa, incluso más de lo que se ha mencionado en mi país. Gracias por hablar de ello para que no se olvide y para que se conozca el tema fuera de México y quiénes son los responsables. Me llamó la atención en especial esa frase "Pensé que era el fin del mundo" es exactamente la misma frase que decían mis abuelos, mis tíos y mis padres quienes lo vivieron en primera persona. Saludos desde San Juanico!!
Damn, you know when an explosions bad when it makes people think a heckin nuke went off. To be fair, BLEVES of stuff like railcars or tanks, especially those huge ones, tend to be powerful enough explosions to produce a mushroom cloud (any large explosion will do it, look at what happened to the Rocket fuel facility that blew up in Nevada decades ago, that stuff exploded like the place got nuked too)
These photos from the day along with that example are startling! I can understand why the man woke up thinking he was in hell. I could not imagine the fear he and the others must have felt
Your videos are a class act in every way. Your work is Professional and spot on accurate with excellent narration. You don't sensationalize and have total respect for the source material and the people involved. Bravo Sir.
I can't believe you talked about this disaster. Since before i was born, my family has lived in a neighborhood very close to San Juanico and all my life i heard about it. All my family had to be evacuated at the time (along with the rest of the neighborhood) and they remember the time-line of everything that happened.
I did not know about this event. Wow, major accident! You are one of the best TH-cam channel out there about disasters and historical moments. Keep it up!
This was a result of another disaster this time is the US when a school exploded. The oderant is Ethyl Mercaptan, the strongest "smell" on earth, dectable at less than a part per million (much less IIRC, I can't recall the exact amounts).
@@marvindebot3264 yup. I forgot if this channel or it was the plainly difficult channel who made a video why odorants are added on LPG. Note that gasoline's good smelling odor comes from benzene. It is added to gasoline to improve and control gasoline's explosive power primarily. It is also a potent carcinogen too so don't sniff gasoline. 😅 Diesel smells like cheap cooking oil though.
Great work! This is a real documentary, this work is very awesome, some that the TV Mexican can't made I saw some images that i don't know and make me had very impressed, however the narrative was incredible, the rithm are simple and neutral, like to a conversation. Thanks for this documentary, my mattern grandpa was one of the lot people that they dared had recover the rests of the peoples burnied into the houses, given that rescue services, firemens, soldiers and police was don't have the worth to enter at this places for the hard smell to burnied skin, gas, and others. I wanna congrats for your work, this event, has been bit by bit forgotten for the new generations, and too for the same local history, above all for the earthquake at the next year (1985) that represented one way to forgot the tragedy success at last year. Thanks from to Mexico
There was an explosion a few days ago and another a few weeks ago in Mexico. It just shows there is much more that needs to be done, the rules are written in blood. RIP for the victims 🕊️
I was 4 years old when that happened, my family had to flee to my aunt's home. We're live now thanks to a hill that somehow deviated the wave, but a tree we had on the front was reduced to ashes. The local graveyard was filled with bodies, they dug trenches with heavy equipment that were filled with the dead.
I have an uncle who was a cameraman for imevision at the time, and he was sent to the area for news coverage. And when he talks about rhe matter he always says the thing that haunted him the most was seeing entire families death together hugging unable to scape after the first explosion
Great investigation! I remember this tragedy when I was very young, and seeing the pictures of cremated people as if it was a nuclear explosion; many people caught unguard, like in Pompey, burned completely The fact that this happened at a time when strict Mexican government censures makes us appreciate the investigation for this video. Not much information is around since the government always buried stories that make them look bad
I lived roughly 3 km south of San Juanico at the time. I was 11 yo. I remember the sky, it was bright red and you could hear the roar of the fire from that distance. My mom and I looked out the window and saw a bright flash followed several seconds later by the deafening explosion and the shock wave that made our building shake and closed shut the window. Fortunately the glass did not break. At that time the Cold War was at a very high point and we really thought it was a nuclear bomb so we took two mattresses and hid in a hallway for some time. Later, listening to the radio we learned what actually had happened. Several people began flooding the gardens of our apartment complex. Many were wearing only underwear. My mom and the neighbors took blankets and some food to them. I also remember that the media went to San Juanico and took some very gruesome footage of people and many animals burnt alive. I remember a standing horse, its skin totally burnt but it was still alive. Anyway, everytime I tell this story and mention that we thought it was a nuclear bomb people laugh, but it really felt like that.
Pemex has... quite the history, to say the least. Here's another story about a huge disaster connected to one of their facilities: th-cam.com/video/q6D1vuFswoI/w-d-xo.html
Hi FH - watching your videos inspired me to start my own channel 3 years ago...and I just reached 100K subs!! I covered this one a couple of months ago, great minds think alike? Thanks for the inspiration. All the best.
They're infamous here in Mexico as well, so much greed and corruption, some say the country is worse off with it existing, it's just an excuse for people of power to gobble money
You can look at a night club call the 5-7 who got on fire in Grenoble France in the 70 there's a wiki page about this place.
I love this fuxkin music !!!
Love your work, keep it up.
Mexican chemical engineer here,my Industrial Safety professor did work for Pemex at the time.
Issue was very well known and actually reported days prior, a minor gas leak from one of the main containers. The person in charge was on holiday and nobody was left to cover for him
Típico de PEMEX.
Pemex siendo Pemex.
podés explayar más? Fuga por dónde? alguna válvula? algún instrumento?
@@fernandoramoa7079 una tubería en la base de uno de los contenedores, más que eso no se
obviamente los de arriba se la pasaron buscando a ver a quien culpaban en lugar de aceptar que la cagaron y ayudar a la gente que perjudicaron
I knew about this tragedy, why in 1996 there was an explosion again in San Juanico. It was smaller than the one in the 80's, but I remember how the house shook and the glass thundered. While we were eating, the adults began to say:"San Juanico is exploding again! We have to pack our bags in case we have to Let's go!..." and I grew up believing that it was normal for gas deposits to explode from time to time, when the problem that plagues Mexico is corruption! Thanks for this video, it gives voice of remmembrace for those wo are lost
Honestly, you're probably better off believing that that way you're always ready to move out if it does happen
As opposed to not believing something serious is happening and staying there in spite of the warnings
Corruption runs rampant in all of the Americas
@@magicpyroninja yes, muy survival instint Is always on! ... Dis(advantages)of growing up in México.
@@EtzeneuerD16 I wouldn't consider that a disadvantage in any way. To be honest, when the world turns to s*** I imagine you'll last longer than a week. You'd be surprised how many millions won't
😢
"The Mexican government has investigated the disaster at the Mexican government owned LPG plant and found that the Mexican government to have done nothing wrong" just perfectly sums it up.
We don't need no stinking release valves!
Handled just as well as the Love Canal.
@@timd4524 or the Union Carbide plant explosion
Mexico made the example (1960’s to 2000)
Canada, the EU... DNC America followed it
And the world says Mexico was not innovating
Pressure Release Valves you said???
Let gas escape, our gas paid with our $$$???
Shut that stinking (literally lol) gas valve ASAP!
Believe me there are people who think that way, not only in Mexico
What I like best about Fascinating Horror's productions is that you remind people that these things happen. You tell the story, lay out the facts, and don't try and overdo it with over dramatic music and emotional tones and phrases. It makes the horror of the event more powerful and, you might say, more fascinating.
Concur, music and narration is understated and solemn = perfect.
I agree, absolutely. He keeps the mood solemn but not dark and gloomy. He's respectful. States the good and the bad with an even tone. Love his style as well!👻
It's what good old-fashioned journalism used to sound like. Watch or listen to the 11/22/63 JFK assassination videos/tapes compared to 7/13's attempt on Pres. Trump.
I had forgotten about it since it was almost 40 years ago. It was really tragic. The smell was horrible. I remember bringing sandwiches to Gadalupe Virgen Basílica.
Tlalnepantla where San Juanico neighborhood is located is part the urban zone of Mexico City; although it’s a different state I’d say it is the same city.
Pemex was the Mexican Government’s monopoly and, thus plagued with corruption. M.R. Beteta, Pemex’s general director (CEO) should’ve been held accountable for negligence and active hampering of rescue and investigation; but he was a high ranking PRI (State Party) official.
Preach!
1:42 "potentially dangerous leak" I asked my regional natural gas provider why they didnt have a non-emergrncy line to report smelling natural gas. The employee said if you smell a leak, it's an emergency.
I was once walking and saw a fire pillar. I couldn't see the whole picture due to vegetation in my line of sight, but I knew that there's a propane place in the area and it was fire season.
I called 911 and told the dispatcher about what I'm seing, it turned out that was supposed to be happening (I don't remember what she said it was though). I got the feeling I was not the only one to call it in.
Indeed it is!!!
@@jed-henrywitkowski6470 Hence the vegetation to be less visible. You don’t want to know what they are really up to! 🤔 now that I think of it there sure quite a bit more prone to allergies, asthma, COPD in none smokers, neurodivergence…than there was even in the 80’s and early 90’s.
natural gas doesnt smell, before the 1960s millions died in gas leaks, it was decided to add a strong smell to gas for safety. My dad works as an adviser on what was termed the North Sea Gas Conversion Project. Every building in the UK and Europe had to have their supply & equipment modified...every domestic house...it took years but now gas stinks and it has saved millions of lives.
@@Sorchia56Source?
Can we all appreciate the bravery of the firefighters that risked their lives cooling down the tanks, knowing full well they could explode at any second ?
Es por cosas asi que los bomberos son la autoridad más respetada (si no la unica) en todo Mexico.
It's because they weren't aware of the dangers 😂
It is easy to spot firemen (+women) as they are the only people running TOWARDS danger.
@@omargjuarez1 clearly you have no education in this room. But firefighters often go into fires, knowing for well that they could explode or be severely harmed and still do it. Tell me that’s an idiot who sits in a desk all day without telling me.
"please clap"
Ah, Pemex. The petroleum company with Disaster stamped all over it. Not only were Pemex responsible for this catastrophe, but the Guadalajara disaster too. And Pemex seemed very good at blaming other people and companies for the disasters they created. And building a memorial park while human remains were still being discovered during its construction removed any honour in respect of the victims. Utterly shameful
Lets not forget BP ...Deepwater Horizon is STILL LEAKING
I’m sure this channel could do an entire series on Pemex explosions. There has been so many.
A series on what PEMEX has done, I agree!
But also a series of state owned corporations... all types, not only petrochemical/chemical... and the disasters and lives lost by them.
Probably no nation on earth escapes this type of truancy, government one that is
Ahh yes, good ol’ Pemex, just turn a rock upside and you’ll find a disaster with their name on
@@RebeccaCampbell1969 I agree and I don’t live far from where a house exploded from an uncapped gas line which our local gas company was responsible for - I believe there was two fatalities and a handful of injuries.
Having fought two POL fires and surviving a BLEVE that melted our fire truck to the ground, I have always appreciated your videos as they are very well done and on point. I glad your hard work has made your channel grow.
Holy shit man. I am a volunteer firefighter, got my FFI & FFII, thankfully I've not had to experience something like this. Would you share the story? I'd love to hear about it and if there's anything that can be learned to share with my department to keep our guys alive in a situation like this. Thanks and best wishes.
@@KensCounselingCouch I second that, tell us what happened.
BLEE's, backdrafts, & unexpected explosions (think West, Texas), are all very scary looking.
Melted your fire truck to THE GROUND??!!😱
Fire truck misunderstood the assignment
I love how this channel doesn’t have paid sponsors and beg people to like and subscribe. Such a pleasant rarity.
I could be entirely wrong on this, but I suspect that with his views he makes enough money for a living and build some savings, so he doesn't strictly need more money and thus he doesn't do sponsors. I very much respect that if that's the case, as many people do do them and then start living more luxuriously.
@@MarcelVos Wouldn't they be demonetized automatically anyway since the topics always involve death and stuff? idk how intense youtubes monetization is these days
@@RaccoonKCDTH-cam is ridiculous
Can’t really imagine how he’d segue to an ad. Very glad he doesn’t have to.
@@benji274good point lol
I must tell You that this hellish accident was broadcasted LIVE. No edition, no cuts. Reporter went through the now charred homes just with microphone and a cameraman. Two pictures remain with me: a couple embraced on a bed, they look like pompeyean remains, and a horse very still, with burned skin, and the only thing that has life was it's eyes
😮 Horrific and haunting.
That is just so disrespectful. But what do we expect. The press always want to be the first to show their viewers and get those big, big ratings. If it bleeds, it leads!!
@@cuddlepaws4423 it was a different time. A sensacionalist tabloid , infamous and now extint, published a "special" number. Lots of graphic photos. Exposed in the street to the casual sight. We, as children, were constante exposed to the worst of human Nature. Traumatic, yes, but now we have an iron stomach (and more issues than Vogue).
@@cuddlepaws4423This was in 1985 when Mexican television was dominated by Televisa and to a lesser extent by the Imevision Network, both de facto controlled by the government. It's surprising at all they didn't try to censor the horrors, by this point the government was doing everything to suppress criticism of the ruling party
And of course opposition media fully exploited the carnage for both ratings and to rip into the government for their negligence..
So the horse was still alive but burned?
I remember my dad talking about booking a hotel in Mexico city and when they got there discovering that it was right across the street from a giant Pemex gas station that had such lax safety that you could smell the fumes and see the distorted air from all the spilled gas from their room. They moved to a different hotel because they were getting headaches and didn't feel at all safe, and this would have been within a year of the LPG plant explosion.
I have been a volunteer firefighter for about 40 years (joined up in April 1984) and ended up as a Senior volunteer officer. This was one of our training "films" for BLEVE incidents, probably in the late 1980s. Still today SERIOUS SCAREY STUFF. Several photos of the Firefighters shown here remind me of the dangers we face.
As usual the people suffer again. It’s never the governments fault. Rest in peace. God bless the people
As a retired Firefighter, let me tell you a BLEVE is no joke! I saw a regular electric water heater shoot straight up from a basement, through the three stories above it, through the attic and then the roof. It landed ~ 200 feet away even after depositing all that energy into the levels of wood it blew straight through. This was all just from steam. It sounded like a bomb, then a missile, then a bomb again when it hit the ground. We found out later that the homeowner had removed a leaking pressure relief valve with just a blank cap. It was able to build up massive amounts of pressure that it usually would have been able to blow off.
sadly, prior to the relief valve being added in the 1940s this was common place occurance on water heaters. an older trick to prevent such was to connect the toilet refill line to the hot water instead of the cold service line in attempt to mitigate pressure build up.
The water heater rocket is still one of the most impressive things ever done on Mythbusters. When they did it with no structure and just out on the runway it hit an estimated 500ft before it came back down. I remember they revisited once and built a simulated 2 story structure over it and it just had no Fs to give about structure. I have heard in the past some actual water heaters attempting to be a space program have actually shifted homes on their foundations.
😮
😱😱😱
@@filanfyretracker *some actual water heaters attempting to be a space program* the formulation is really hilarious ! I can almost see a young water heater telling its parents : Mom! I wanna be an astronaut !
PS I also thought about the Mythbuster's episode - that was soo cool !
Usually memorials to the dead in these situations are a kind gesture, but creating one that holds up the “nothing to see here” card while being built over the still-smoldering rubble of former homes is absolutely disgusting.
Se construyó rapidamente en parte para ocultar evidencias, y en parte para evitar focos de infección. El video no lo cuenta, pero se construyó tambien una fosa común para al menos 90 - 100 cadaveres no reconocidos o reclamados, en una extensión improvisada del cementerio local. Amigos que viven no muy lejos cuentan historias de los gritos o sonidos extraños que se llegan a escuchar en las madrugadas por ese lugar.
@@IndridCold-v7i Si lo creo, me suena a todo los que sucede en Tlatelolco con tanta tragedia. Que forma tan fea de irse y que forma tan fea de ser enterrado, la verdad.
Tragedies that take the lives of many people continue to happen, and many of them are forgotten. It's really good to be able to remember them again with a video like this.
Did you really post a cookie cutter comment to farm likes? For a video that's been out for 2 minutes??
Nah it's a good thing to memorize tragedies as it shows respect for those people who lost thier lives.
@@brandoncole5533 I'm certain the OP was being sensitive/thoughtful about the subject matter.
@@dlwhdtjr100 If you don't know your history, you're doomed to repeat it so it's good that people are reminded of these things. That way they don't have to happen again
@@brandoncole5533some people just talk more formally than others sometimes.
The image of those brave firefighters next to what was essentially a ticking bomb...scary 😢
That had to be incredibly tense!
me recordaron a los primeros bomberos que acudieron al incendio de Chernobyl 😔
@@charliebrownn6622 lo mismo pensé :0
Job well done covering it up as they always do, I'm from Mexico and had never heard about this before...
😮
Supongo que en tu familia no escuchan mucho rock, la canción del Tri sobre San Juanico es muy conocida
Demasiadas tragedias olvidadas
The first time I heard about this horrible tragedy I was 23 (I'm now 29). I'm from Mexico as well and the only reason I guess I heard about it is because I moved to CDMX to study and some lady who grew up close to San Juanico mentioned once. But I did not know the details, just that it had been a horrible explosion. F+cking government did a good job covering it up.
Cierto que se promovió desde los gobiernos priistas no habla de San Juanico, ve el tamaño dea tragedia y los del Estado de México siguieron votando por el PRI 😮💨
The amount of negligence on this site was beyond criminal....
We had a smaller version of this happen at an acetylene plant in Dallas in 2007. We saw the fire and smoke. When the cannisters started blowing up and launching 1/4 mile away we high tailed it out of the area. The cannisters were landing on a major highway that runs through town. Amazing no commuters were hit by debris.
I was visiting relatives in Midlothian @ the time & had planned to visit a friend @ SMU Football that day. I postponed the visit until the next day when things had calmed down somewhat.
The government response in the aftermath is outrageous.
Governments everywhere HATE the fact they're responsible for anything bad
Sadly, it usually is.
It's how every government wants to react, just some countries let them get away with it more often than others.
The reason for this is that Pemex at the time provided like 50% of the whole country's revenue. Even "the worst industrial disaster in History" as FH states in the video could not make the government care, it was more important for them to keep Pemex running as usual.
That's peak 80's Mexican corruption for you.
That same year in 1984 there was another disaster involving a facility leaking fuel and destroying a village in Brazil. The incident killed over 500 people.
😮😢
caramba cuantos desastres así y no estamos ni enterados !
According to sources, in Cubatao, Brazil, about 30 miles southeast of Sao Paulo, was Vila Soco favela. About 9,000 residents built makeshift homes on adjacent property owned by Petrobas refineries, a state run company. The company had fuel lines that ran next to the dwellings, including sewerage and drainage ditches. Employees accidentally allowed gas to enter the wrong pipeline to the drainage and leak into the town. Around midnight, a massive explosion leveled the entire village. Whole families were wiped out.
Gosh I feel so sorry for everyone who died, what a horrible way to go.
Maybe for some but I'm fairly certain the ones closest to the explosions didn't feel a thing.. They would have died before their brains had time to tell their bodies that anything even happened, so they likely died happy, content, or whatever they were feeling in the moment and they definitely didn't suffer any pain. Still very tragic though and i hope their loved ones were able to properly grieve. I also hope injured survivors were able to heal and move on with their lives too. This one is intense! 💔💔💔
@@bubzilla6137 por desgracia no muchos tuvieron esa suerte de "irse" sin sentir nada. Hay muchos testimonios y fotos de gente con la piel derretida, quemaduras de tercer grado huyendo por la carretera que une la zona con la ciudad de Mexico o caminando sin rumbo en total shock. Lo mas parecido serían las descripciones de los sobrevivientes de Hiroshima. Varios amigos siguen viviendo no muy lejos de ahi y me han contado cosas peores.
@@IndridCold-v7i First, for those who don't read Spanish, neither do I, this really sucked because it was tedious. Not sure why that translate function wasn't here but oh well. It was well worth it! The following is the message above, to which I will reply:
Unfortunately, not many were lucky enough to "leave" without feeling anything. There are many testimonies and photos of people with melted skin and third-degree burns fleeing along the highway that connects the area with Mexico City or walking aimlessly in total shock. The closest thing would be the descriptions of the Hiroshima survivors. Several friends still live not far from there and have told me worse things.
My response:
That's wild! I hope your friends are doing as well as can be expected under the circumstances. Thank you for sharing! 🙂💙
And in case this person doesn't read English and the YT translator is still absent, here's the Spanish translation:
Mi respuesta: ¡Eso es salvaje! Espero que a tus amigos les vaya tan bien como se puede esperar dadas las circunstancias. ¡Gracias por compartir! 🙂💙
I’ve been following this channel for a long time, and have always appreciated the calm details given without dramatic inflections. But this time sir, you have surpassed your standard. Excellently paced narration, primary background given to acquaint us with necessary information, including all measurements in metres/feet etc. Where possible, names of individuals are recorded with respect at the end. Thank you for all your hard work.
My father was a foreman at an lpg plant in Scotland. As part of his training, he was shown films of such plants exploding, producing 100ft fireballs. Fortunately, he was a conscientious and careful man and never had to experience an accident like this one. It must have been a terrifying and dreadful event.
When the gas plant exploded it was at 5:00 am, and it looked like dawn had broken, rumbling the earth for several miles around. That was the size of the explosion.
The endlessness of the explosions is especially horrifying.
Gracias por tratar este tema en el canal, porque este es un desastre muy conocido pero poco estudiado en México.
My family had his house some 3 miles away from the explosion site, I remember my granny telling us that the heat could be felt even at such distance, as back in the day they were not many buildings.
She also told us about the people who got turned into carbon on their homes, cars or streets. It was such a horrible thing and I just learned there was sin international investigation, that’s never been told it happened, the story goes as “Yeah well, it happened, but it was the people fault for living there!”
😮
That's a terrible attitude!
@@maryeckel9682 that’s the gov, everything can be put under the rug, it happened with the recent subway bridge collapse
No me sorprende lo que cuentas, obvio el gobierno haciendose pendejos, viendo a quien le echan la culpa. La familia de mi mama vivian en GAM, casi en la Basilica. Me conto que alcanzo a ver la luz desde su ventana.
Many TH-cam content creators can produce a high quality highly interesting highly informative video sometimes, but its TH-camrs that produce CONSISTENTLY good videos like this that will survive and (hopefully) thrive. Thanks for the consistency.
Still one of my favorite channels… I’m here every Tuesday
I love the video and images you use. It's always helpful to see photos of the event and examples of what you're describing. Thank you for all the care you put into creating these!
I like that he doesn't use AI images or unrelated images/sounds to "enhance" things. It bothers me when creators do that. This channel might only have a few images to go along with each story, but they are more effective than "random guy grabbing his hair" or "shot of a plane for no reason."
I love the music in all the videos. Ive watched probably 30 videos and i never skip the beginning
It's part of it
Super atmospheric tuneage.
Same 😊
Same ! I miss when it used to be louder. In the older videos you could hear the music the whole time. I just love hearing it giving the stories an eerie feeling.
i agree. always gives me a nostalgic forensic files feel
Thank you for explaining BLEVEs. I feel it is a somewhat unknown contributor to many of the large explosions in disasters. It’s one reason commercial tanks have a pressure relief valve. It’s usually better to vent gas and delay (or possibly prevent) a BLEVE as it can pose a smaller hazard or lessen the impact of an incident. Also, even if the vented gas plume catches fire, the chance of that flame causing the tank to explode is considerably small. Burning vent gas doesn’t enter the atmosphere unburned and pose a hazard elsewhere. This is why ruptured natural gas lines that catch fire (and don’t endanger people or exposures) are usually allowed to burn freely until the gas is turned off. I have included a lot of generalizations here because there are situations that usual practices are not the best choice.
Lastly, the average person usually has something with the potential for a BLEVE in their own home. A garage fire can create one from a metal can of gasoline, the propane cylinder for your gas grille, and the little metal cylinders of gas for camp stoves.
l'm not sure you clearly got it. BLEVEs are caused when applying an external fire to a presurized vessel; never from within on its own.
A pressure relief valve's objective is that as stated in its name, and it engages when pressure rises above 250+ psi, as in a faulty overfilling operation (roughly reaching 90% tank capacity).
Mentioning the "absense" of PR valves in this case is rather useless, for if the tank is already on fire to the point the PF valves engage (with a major flame) then explosion is imminent; it's intrinsecally not a device to save a tank from a BLEVE.
BTW is proper to mention it's extremely unlike that these tanks lacked PR valves but rather lacked maitenance. Since they aim up, they're prone to storing dirt, wich in time accumulates and clogs up springs and release mechanisms
Fire suppression not working or turned off, missing pressure valves, and continued pumping fuel into the site for an hour... I can't decide if it's gross negligence, gross incompetence, or deliberate (insurance job?).
I got chills hearing that stuff. I knew what was coming, but that made it way worse.
It’s Mexico, it is just the consequences of corruption. It is not deliberate just neglect, no insurance.
Both of the first two, tbh. Man made disasters in Mexico can usually be explained by the first two alone.
Incompetence and negligence. Insurance doesn´t work like that here. It was just people not wanting to spend more on safe measures
🌹I like the mood you set for each story. The seriousness of the calamity is felt immediately. You don't over dramatize. You give the necessary history to set the story up. You share facts with the sources where they came from. Also photos from the scene, if possible.
🌹I've been a subscriber for probably 7 years now. Have loved every minute!
🌹THANK YOU for a job consistently well done!🏆🏅
Fascinating Horror is the only channel that gets my thumbs up as soon as I hit play. The next bad video I see on this channel will be the FIRST bad video I've ever seen on this channel.
Fun fact: you're still not allowed to take an LPG vehicle through the Eurotunnel...says a lot about how "safe" it is 😬
Love this channel. Concise but detailed, with a focus on the human cost and lessons learned, rather that the pure drama. Always excellent content. Superb.😊
The EU have also banned curly cucumbers and bananas, I am still convinced they're safe!
Well, at least twice a tragedy ocurred because a truck catched fire inside a tunnel in Europe
There is a short tunnel on I-71 in downtown Cincinnati that's had a hazmat ban as long as I can remember, well over 40 years! Granted, the euro tunnel is considerably longer, but it shows that the powers that be know how dangerous stuff like LPG can be.
@@fluffyfoursource?
@@fluffyfourthey are not banned , it just fruit and veg which is of inferior quality has to be sold as such. Malformed stuff can be sold but you have to know what you are getting. Do you have a problem with this?
Your videos have been consistently well-researched, professional and simply excellent. Among several things, I appreciate that there is no annoying, dramatic background music.
Only two weeks later, Bophal...
Which would have totally eclipsed this even at the time, and has hidden it in shadow since.
Yeah, the 80s was full of disasters each year
Terrible two months
Not surprising as the 80s saw a worldwide economic boom (pun intended) that was mostly unrestrained by silly things like “safety” or “morals”
Bhopal*
I’ve been a subscriber for a couple of years now, thank you for maintaining your respectful commentary and exceptional research! You NEVER disappoint 😊
Poor boy thought he was sent to hell, the heat must've been hellish
More to do with his mother's ridiculous remark!
I really wish parents didn’t threaten their kids with made up eternal torture, especially for totally normal, innocent child behaviour. Depending on how intense the parents are in their odd beliefs, they can end up giving their kids a complex!
@ChaosMagnet problem is for those people it isn't made up, they believe that. They still shouldn't threaten the kids with it because they aren't the one who makes that decision anyway. In some faiths I am pretty sure you can condemn yourself by doing it to another person.
mmm yes this floor is made of floor
Great voice and narration. Thank you for the excellent content. No need to pay for streaming services with channels of this caliber. 👏
That's so lovely to hear. Thank you!
Been watching a long time… was moved to say today, you Sir, are an artist. Thank you for your consistently well crafted videos.
There's actually a song that tells the story of this disaster by the bad "El Tri", it kinda crazy that this incident isn't more well known outside of mexico
Yeah, that song was released in 1985, and after narrating the disaster it ends with the kind of moral conventional for ballads -- thank God for your life, because death could come any time -- but in the middle of the song, with a different stanza structure, is this verse: Ahora quieren convertir en parque
Ese lugar
Ya que esta ahogado el niño
Ahora el poso
Quieren tapar
Mejor que indemnicen
A los que se quedaron sin hogar
Y que intensifiquen las medidas de seguridad (Now they want to make a park out of that place -- Now that the child has drowned they want to put a cover on the well [a proverb] -- Better they should compensate those left homeless, and intensify safety measures)
That was a great symphonic version
I am always eager to learn of obscure events. Thank you for being one of the few who bring these back out into the open!
Thank you for your hard work in researching, as well as creating, these informative videos. Not only are they Always interesting, the historical retelling of specific incidents provide pertinent insight to these tragic and often avoidable disasters. I for one appreciate this very much!
This must have been absolutely TERRIFYING!
My father told me that when he was twelve years old, while he was waiting for the school bus, he was playing soccer with his friends in his garden when suddenly explosions were heard and mushroom clouds were coming out.
Greetings from Tlalnepantla, Mexico
I just LOVE your commentary, so eloquent and thorough! Wish you could narrate EVERY TH-cam video!!
San Juanico is in a hill, I live on a town at the base of the hill, my mom was in middle school when that happened and the school was asked to volunteer students to aid a portion of the displaced, she says the air smelled like burnt hair for days, that some of the kinda identifiable bodies were placed in a local basketball court, she says it was terrifying.
She told me she woke up to the explosion, it should've been dark outside but the explosion made the whole sky light up, she was told by some of the affected that when the tank blew up so did the pipes of local use that run under the streets and connect to each home, it was ignited underground and that made the pavement so hot it melted everyone's shoes and eventually feet while they ran to safety.
Truly horrifying.
Hey man, I just wanted to let you know you’ve been a lunch break staple of mine for a year or so now. They’re the perfect little bite of info, and fit perfectly into my 30 minute breaks. Thanks for being one of the high points of my work day!
I always look forward to your videos. You do such a stellar job of explaining These things, not yelling about it just reporting it.
I am from Mexico, I still remember that morning when people were calling local radio stations asking for help and telling the horrors they had seen.
Your video helps us to not forget what can happen due to corruption and carelessness.
Thank you!
I was a young girl living in Mexico City when this happened, I still remember the stories in the news and taking blankets and food to help the displaced. Less than one year later, on Semtember 19th, 1985, the big earthquake hit Mexico City, people were just recovering from the San Juanico incident when this second tragedy occured. I just seemed like a nightmare
I have actually heard about this disaster prior to you covering it. The scale of the disaster is mind-boggling.
I used to live about 3 miles from San Juanico when I was a kid, and I saw from home a flame that went up into the sky, it was like a giant lighter flame, it was 6 am and it was usually dark and cold around that time of the year, Trough my window i could see it was bright as if the sun was shining bright, I quickly waked up and washed my face and combed my hair, as I was "late" for school, I heard my mom calling me to go up to the roof, where I saw debris in the flame going up, huge pieces of metal were launched into the air, and fall in a radius of around 1 mile. we had no school for 15 days, and the news were grim, what I remember is that it was warm and bright with lots of people injured and many died. The zone has been rebuilt and Gas plants are still working, at first most people fled the zone and lots of families moved out, today memories of that has been forgotten, and people are living again too close to the zone...
That must have been terrifying. I wasn't born yet, but my family lives a few miles from San Juanico and my grandparents, my mom ,and my aunt told us how hot the windows felt and they thought it was an earthquake.
Mi mamá me conto algo parecido, ellos vivian en la GAM, mu cerca de la basilica. Que vio la luz, se sento en la cama y despertó a su hermana, que vieron la luz bajar despues.
Unfortunately, LPG is more dangerous than other fuels since it is heavier than air so does not dissipated. If a leak occurs the gas travels along the ground until it finds an ignition source and an explosion is inevitable.
I co-worker of mine who used to live near San Juanico told me when we met at work how devastating the explosion was. He could hardly speak for he was in shock but managed to tell me he saw people on fire running down the hills surrounding the area. Terrible thing!
Cuando nos encontramos. En situaciones como esas.los mexicanos.sacamos mucho valores yenfremtar y enfrentar otras adversidades. Com o el gasolinazo en san Luis potosi por el infortunio de ser he innorante como la mayoría del pueblo pues festejemos viva México cabrones.
"Huh, that's weird, must be a leak. I think I'll have a smoke and deal with it later."
Pass the Tequila José.
@@juanpablosaenz9037aye vato
Nods in Bhopal.
Bleves are utterly terrifying. I watched some footage online of one a few years ago and basically if you ever see a large container venting like that then you have seconds to get as far away as possible. That venting is the safety valve on the 'pressure cooker', designed to buy you a little time to run like hell.
pressure reliev falves engage more frequently that you would imagine, all around the world.
There are actually a few ways to immediately decompress a tank when these valves engage. What has to be guaranteed is that there should be no source for a spark in the area, namely electric wiring should be disengaged at the local board, or no combustion engines should be operating. No need for drama
Great information. I remember the event from adults and the news back then. I was an elementary school kid and a youngster when it exploded AGAIN in 1996. I remember the smoke plumes from the second event.
The Raven's Eye also covered this story.
2 completely different styles, but both excellent and informative. 2 of my favourite channels.
Your videos are so well written, narrated, and meaningful. Footage and pictures are mostly real. ❤
Always look forward to a Tuesday morning video by FH
I was 15 years old when this disaster happened, my family and I lived in a neighborhood near San Juanico. Our house trembled during the explosions before dawn and my grandma who was awake at that hour, thought the windows glasses would brake. We heard the emergency vehicles all that week, day and night, neighbors organized to aid as much as they could, we were gathering clothes, water, medicines and many other stuff, but there were hundreds of people seriously burnt or dead carbonized on the streets or in their own houses. The authorities diminished the situation as common people complained about the gas odor one or two days prior the disaster. The government lied all the time, as it always does. Unfortunately, a similar situation repeated in Sector Reforma in Guadalajara, on April 15th, 1992, when people warns the authorities, but they say “Nothing happens, everything’s fine”. Yes, I blame the authorities. San Juanico GLP plant was built with the warning of no building neighborhoods at least 300m away, or more. This was ignored when the usual corruption attended more the income than safety, nothing new. And about the 10,000 dollars of compensation, I still ask… really? Mexican government never pays, otherwise, they charge you.
I've waited years for this one. Thank you!
I love the fact you don't beg us to like and subscribe... You let your work.. Do the work. I subscribe cause of your quality content. Keep it up!
This was such a tragedy! I’m sending this to my mom who was born and spent her childhood in Mexico … I wonder if she ever heard about this!
My grandfather worked very close to there. That day he left home late to work and that saved him. According to my mother, he only spoke once about what he saw that day. He said he saw people running engulfed in flames, leaving their skin stuck to the walls. Some tried to jump into the water to save themselves.
My mom and my grandmother saw the explosion from home, they said that everything suddenly lit up as if it were day.
I am from Mexico. My mom was a little girl when this happened. She says it was very early in the morning and all of a sudden, no sunrise, the world came alight as if it was midday and the explosion made the glass windows of her house shake like there was a tremor.
La información es muy completa, incluso más de lo que se ha mencionado en mi país. Gracias por hablar de ello para que no se olvide y para que se conozca el tema fuera de México y quiénes son los responsables. Me llamó la atención en especial esa frase "Pensé que era el fin del mundo" es exactamente la misma frase que decían mis abuelos, mis tíos y mis padres quienes lo vivieron en primera persona. Saludos desde San Juanico!!
Damn, you know when an explosions bad when it makes people think a heckin nuke went off.
To be fair, BLEVES of stuff like railcars or tanks, especially those huge ones, tend to be powerful enough explosions to produce a mushroom cloud (any large explosion will do it, look at what happened to the Rocket fuel facility that blew up in Nevada decades ago, that stuff exploded like the place got nuked too)
The image at 6:08 would be a cool album cover
Corruption and greed hurt people and it’s wrong and sad. So frustrating.
My Dad was telling me about this. He was there and witnessed some of this disaster. Thankfully, they were far enough away from it not to be injured.
These photos from the day along with that example are startling! I can understand why the man woke up thinking he was in hell. I could not imagine the fear he and the others must have felt
Que bueno que no has visto las fotos que hay sobre personas y animales de granja que se carbonizaron de pie en ese accidente.
Your videos are a class act in every way. Your work is Professional and spot on accurate with excellent narration. You don't sensationalize and have total respect for the source material and the people involved. Bravo Sir.
12:10 yeah, sounds about right for mexican gov. Especially 1980s mexican gov. They would never take accountability or admit fault.
I can't believe you talked about this disaster. Since before i was born, my family has lived in a neighborhood very close to San Juanico and all my life i heard about it. All my family had to be evacuated at the time (along with the rest of the neighborhood) and they remember the time-line of everything that happened.
Important reminder that government run operations can be as negligent as privately run ones....if not more so.
Came here to say exactly that.
DEFINITELY more so. Who’s gonna investigate them? They could care less who gets hurt as long as their grip on power remains.
I did not know about this event. Wow, major accident! You are one of the best TH-cam channel out there about disasters and historical moments. Keep it up!
I didn't know that LPG has odour added, you learn something new every day!
This was a result of another disaster this time is the US when a school exploded. The oderant is Ethyl Mercaptan, the strongest "smell" on earth, dectable at less than a part per million (much less IIRC, I can't recall the exact amounts).
@@marvindebot3264 yup. I forgot if this channel or it was the plainly difficult channel who made a video why odorants are added on LPG.
Note that gasoline's good smelling odor comes from benzene. It is added to gasoline to improve and control gasoline's explosive power primarily. It is also a potent carcinogen too so don't sniff gasoline. 😅
Diesel smells like cheap cooking oil though.
Natural gas also has the same thing added so people can detect leaks or an unlit ring on their hob.
@@marvindebot3264I’ve heard of that one. Sad.
Growing up, we smelled a sample of it every school year during fire safety week. Strong stuff. 🤢
I've heard many stories about this event, glad you decided to make a video on it.
What you have just witnessed was a bevy of BLEVE's Thank you. Thank you. I- i - I'll see my self out now
i can’t B(e)L(i)EVE it!
I've never heard of this disaster, thanks for making it known, your stories are well put together.
The fire brigade prevented the 2 largest spherical tanks from exploding, that’s incredible!, given the damage that the other explosions had caused. 🙂👍
Love love LOVE your content. So well written and I love your tempo. I enjoy watching your videos before bed or with coffee in the morning. Thank you!
I live in Houston. I have seen many disasters with a huge toll on life coming from PeMex
Great work! This is a real documentary, this work is very awesome, some that the TV Mexican can't made I saw some images that i don't know and make me had very impressed, however the narrative was incredible, the rithm are simple and neutral, like to a conversation.
Thanks for this documentary, my mattern grandpa was one of the lot people that they dared had recover the rests of the peoples burnied into the houses, given that rescue services, firemens, soldiers and police was don't have the worth to enter at this places for the hard smell to burnied skin, gas, and others.
I wanna congrats for your work, this event, has been bit by bit forgotten for the new generations, and too for the same local history, above all for the earthquake at the next year (1985) that represented one way to forgot the tragedy success at last year.
Thanks from to Mexico
Good morning. Love your videos
I ❤ only the almighty Allah.
@@joãoAlberto-k9x Glory to Christ forever, every knee shall bow.
@@zacharypotvin6579
You two can keep your respective religious mind control mediums to yourselves.
Thank you for the upload. It was very informative and interesting as always xx
There was an explosion a few days ago and another a few weeks ago in Mexico. It just shows there is much more that needs to be done, the rules are written in blood. RIP for the victims 🕊️
I was 4 years old when that happened, my family had to flee to my aunt's home. We're live now thanks to a hill that somehow deviated the wave, but a tree we had on the front was reduced to ashes. The local graveyard was filled with bodies, they dug trenches with heavy equipment that were filled with the dead.
A few years later the Guadalajara disaster • also caused by pemex
Sector Reforma 😢
My mom resided at Ecatepec back when this happened 😢 she said that the explosion was so powerful that lit up the whole the whole atmosphere at 5:30 am
I have an uncle who was a cameraman for imevision at the time, and he was sent to the area for news coverage. And when he talks about rhe matter he always says the thing that haunted him the most was seeing entire families death together hugging unable to scape after the first explosion
Great investigation! I remember this tragedy when I was very young, and seeing the pictures of cremated people as if it was a nuclear explosion; many people caught unguard, like in Pompey, burned completely
The fact that this happened at a time when strict Mexican government censures makes us appreciate the investigation for this video. Not much information is around since the government always buried stories that make them look bad
Excellent job as always
Thank you for sharing these stories you do a great job
I lived roughly 3 km south of San Juanico at the time. I was 11 yo. I remember the sky, it was bright red and you could hear the roar of the fire from that distance. My mom and I looked out the window and saw a bright flash followed several seconds later by the deafening explosion and the shock wave that made our building shake and closed shut the window. Fortunately the glass did not break. At that time the Cold War was at a very high point and we really thought it was a nuclear bomb so we took two mattresses and hid in a hallway for some time. Later, listening to the radio we learned what actually had happened. Several people began flooding the gardens of our apartment complex. Many were wearing only underwear. My mom and the neighbors took blankets and some food to them. I also remember that the media went to San Juanico and took some very gruesome footage of people and many animals burnt alive. I remember a standing horse, its skin totally burnt but it was still alive. Anyway, everytime I tell this story and mention that we thought it was a nuclear bomb people laugh, but it really felt like that.