At least two people suffered minor injuries this afternoon when an explosion occurred, followed by a fire, in a neighborhood in the Buenos Aires district of San Martín. The incident occurred shortly after 2 p.m. in Agüer and Reconquista, in Villa Ballester, in that sector of the northwest of Greater Buenos Aires located a few blocks from the Chilavert railway station. Two teams of volunteer firefighters responded to the scene.
According to the Naturgy company, a group of workers were carrying out patching tasks in the street as contracted by the local municipality, when they affected a gas master pipe by drilling it with a backhoe machine. The explosion affected a PH with four homes, causing bars and glass to explode, and damaging the interior of the apartments.
During the incident, a man was injured when he jumped onto the sidewalk from a first floor that was being reached by flames. In addition, another neighbor suffered cuts to her hands.
According to the first expert reports, the affected pipe was not located at the depth established by the regulations (80 centimeters), but was located at approximately 40 centimeters.
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One of the victims declared to the Todo Noticias channel: “They broke a whole half of the street, a whole corner, and my whole house burst. I opened the door and everything was full of debris. They put a bomb in the middle of the apartment and people were screaming. It was crazy. “It was truly crazy, a horror movie.”
Firefighters and police evacuated other homes around the explosion, and the flames raged for more than five hours. In addition, Civil Defense personnel and the Medical Emergency, Traffic and Citizen Protection Service participated in the operation. The local municipality’s victim support team was also assisting the families.
