THE MEXICO CITY

EXPLOSION OF
1984

Nick Chumo
Addy Hellebusch
Matt Kelley
Chris Williams
Introduction
November 19, 1984
San Juanico; a suburb of Mexico City
20 km outside of Mexico City
40,000 residents
Low income families
Homes as close as 130m to plant
Plant and Process
Pemex State Oil Company
Storage & Distribution facility for liquefied
petroleum gas (LPG)
LPG comes in from 3 different refineries
54 LPG storage tanks- 16,000m3
Daily throughput- 5,000m 3
6 large spherical tanks
2 largest holding 2400m3
48 smaller tanks of various sizes
Built to API Standards
Right Before Explosion
Being filled from a refinery 400km away
11,000m3 LPG on site
Fall in pressure
The cause of the pressure drop was
unidentified
no one initiated emergency shutdown
Pemex Before
Pemex After
What Happened
One of the deadliest industrial disasters in
world history
The initial vapor cloud explosion was the
start of a chain reaction of explosions
There were 19 explosions
15 cylindrical tanks
The 4 smaller spheres
Many of the explosions were BLEVEs
The relative times can be told from seismic
readings
What Happened cont.
Most of the damage to the city was from
fires not the explosions
Fragments from the tanks reached over
1,200 m away
The fragments were hot enough to start fires
Pieces trailed raining LPG as they flew
A concentrated rescue effort was put
into action with 3000 rescuers on site
200 firefighters risked their lives
Accident Timeline
5:30am Rupture of 8 in. pipe; Pressure drop in
control room
5:40am Ignition of gas cloud; Violent
combustion and high flame
5:45am First explosion on seismograph, a
BLEVE; Fire department called
5:46am Second BLEVE, one of the most
violent
6:00am Police alerted and civilian traffic
stopped
6:30am Traffic chaos
Accident Timeline cont.
7:01am Last explosion on
seismograph, a BLEVE
7:30am Continuing tank explosions
8-10:00amRescue work at its height
11:00am Last tank explosion
12-6:00pm Rescue work continues
11:00pm Flames extinguished on last
large sphere
10:00am Last fires put out (next day)
Root Causes
Official cause of rupture is unknown
One report cited
Overfilled tank caused the inlet line to
rupture
Failure of relief valve
Results
500-600 deaths; 300+ never identified
5000-7000 severe injuries
10,000-60,000 people made homeless
31 million dollars of damages
Destruction of 1/3 of the LPG supply to
Mexico City
Results
Results
Future Preventions
Timely inspections
Maintain industrial standards
Better maintenance
Effective operator training
Housing appropriate distance
away
Future Preventions cont.
Proper layout of large LPG
storages
Gas detection and emergency
isolation
Water system failures
Extra water hydrants in the streets
Planned evacuation routes
Summary
This deadly disaster struck the morning
of November 19, 1984
Lasted from 5:30am till 10:00am the
next day
Left hundreds dead and thousands
injured and homeless
Many lessons can be learned from the
tragedy
QUESTION
S?