Explosion’ on board ferry at Mexico resort

At least 13 people have been seriously injured following an ‘explosion’ on a tourist ferry in the Mexican resort of Playa del Carmen. The ship was docked when the explosion occurred shortly after 1pm local time (6pm GMT). According to witnesses, the ferry had arrived at the dock only about three minutes before the explosion was heard at the resort popular with British tourists. Read more: metro.co.uk... Twitter: twitter.com... | Facebook: www.facebook.com...

metro.co.uk...

Wow what a brutal explosion! Hard to say what could cause that, unfortunately I wouldn't be suprised if some folks died. As of this posting there were 14 injuries..

a reply to: canucks555

CCTV of explosion...

metro.co.uk...


RA

That explosion appears to have taken place on the upper decks. If one of the upper decks was the location of the blast it would suggest it was not an engine, which is the most common cause of shipboard explosions. It is difficult to imagine what on the upper decks of a passenger ferry might explode in that way.

Looks like a bilge explosion.

Someone forgot to exhaust gas fumes before turning the key, I bet.

a reply to: CulturalResilience

Huh? That's def not from upper decks. The top of the engine compartment comes up to that second level.

And the fireball is a tell tale sign. It was a pretty slow fiery explosion.

That's my armchair observation anyway.

originally posted by: Mandroid7
Looks like a bilge explosion.

Someone forgot to exhaust gas fumes before turning the key, I bet.

I have to rule out a bilge explosion for three reasons.
First the ship just pulled into port and the engine room fans would have still been on till the engines cooled.
Two ships that size would be diesel and with cold water outside the hull water in the bilges would have been cold.
There was not much smoke around the fireball and gas would have caused black smoke.

I have served on ships with diesel engines and you can get flash fires but a explosion is very unlikely.
and one of the ships i was on had a engine room fire from leaking fuel hitting a turbo charger on a engine and we did not have a explosion but did have a very bad fire.
www.vetfriends.com...
www.navsource.org...

I would look at a propane leak as cause