Mexico Pipelines Attacked Again

Explosions rocked Mexico yesterday as attacks on six pipelines disrupted oil and gas supplies and forced thousands from their homes, just weeks after leftist rebels set off a string of pipeline bombs.

State energy monopoly Pemex said there were no injuries from the blasts, most of which were in Veracruz on the Gulf of Mexico, but Chief Executive Jesus Reyes Heroles said they would cost the company “hundreds of millions of dollars.”

Huge billowing flames lit the night sky after the blasts in the early hours of the morning. More than 20,000 people were rushed from their homes to emergency shelters as gas and oil spewed from the ruptured pipes.

President Felipe Calderon condemned the sabotage and vowed to catch the perpetrators, saying: “In today’s democratic Mexico there is no place for these criminal acts.”