at a fatal gas line explosion in Mexico."

"Authorities say that the pipeline

had been ruptured by suspected oil thieves."

People were lighting cigarettes,

they were dancing,

they were throwing gasoline on top of each other.

Completely intoxicated by the fumes.

"They took their fill

as soldiers sent to guard the pipeline looked on

seemingly powerless.

Then this happened."

And essentially in a matter of seconds,

the whole thing ignited.

People were running from the blast

like human torches.

It was complete chaos.

"The most important thing now

is to look after the injured,

to save lives.

That is the most important thing.

The fight against the illegal theft of fuel

will be strengthened."

The state loses in the region of

three billion U.S. dollars a year

and the 95 percent of what is known as

tomas clandestinas,

which are illegal extractions,

are done by big cartels.

My name is Matthew Bremner

I'm a Scottish writer.

I wrote the story about Mexico's biggest pipeline explosion.

Within the first sort of 24 hours,

people said there were 20 people dead

and 71 people injured.

Obviously those numbers rocketed up

but the final death toll, as it were, is 134.

Now in the field where the irrigation trench was

where the pipeline runs,

framed by an old tree which was scorched in the blast

there is now a shrine.

Almost every day, relatives of the victims go there.

They sit on little plastic benches or wooden crates.

They stare at the crosses, often crying.

Sometimes in some sort of trance.

And they spend hours there.

It's the same always in society,

the people who are at the bottom of the tree,

the people that were there

looking to take advantage of an opportunity.

They're the people that always suffer.

The scale of oil theft in Mexico is enormous.

The state loses 3 billion US dollars a year.

Huachicolero, which is the illegal siphoning

and tapping of fuel

which has been happening in Mexico

now for about 25 years, perhaps longer.

What was a very informal industry

has now become something which is far more organized.

A lot of the big Mexican cartels

are now branching into this sale of oil theft.

Half of their business is now focused

on illegal fuel tapping.

It's a lot less risky, essentially,

to get involved in illegal fuel trade

because you don't need to transport drugs across borders.

You don't need to pay off

different types of police in different countries.

The corruption inside the big petrol giant,

in this case Petróleos Mexicanos, Pemex, is rampant.

And so it's quite easy to pay off workers inside,

to find out when the oil is flowing

through certain pipelines

and to rob it

and then sell it domestically on the black market.

Pemex is one of the biggest oil companies in the world.

For a long time it was considered a cash cow

for the Mexican economy.

It kept Mexico afloat in many ways

and people always refer to it

as the most important institution that the country had.

The government recently released figures

that around 80 percent of the tomas clandestinas

and the fuel robberies that take place in Mexico

are organized in some way by insiders in Pemex.

What would normally happen

is that they would have a link inside Pemex

who would tell them through which pipeline a certain,

it could be gasoline, it could be gas,

it could be anything,

is running and what time and what the pressure is.

They would then go down to the specific pipeline

normally at nighttime.

Normally the pipes are about

between one or two meters below the ground.

They would dig to get to the pipeline.

Then would perforate it with a high-powered drill.

Then a professional solderer would come in

and he would solder a tap to the pipe.

They know exactly what they're doing

when they do it

and the risks that it entails.

So they're professionals.

One of the huachicoleros in Hidalgo area

told me that in one night

the organization that he works for

can make up to 90 thousand pesos.

If you take into account

that an average wage,

at least in that area from what people were telling me,

is about 15 hundred pesos a week.

Then, you know, we're talking serious money here.

Around midday there was a rumor that was spread

that a pipeline had been perforated

and that people were illegally siphoning gasoline

from one of the biggest pipelines in Mexico.

Around two thirty in the afternoon

a patrol of 25 officers from the military arrived.

So this was quite an unusual occurrence

simply because normally fuel robberies

would take place at night.

Men, women, and children were turning up

in vans, in cars, on foot, and on bicycles and motorbikes

and coming to the area in huge numbers.

Within the next two-to-three hours

what may have been 80 people

soon was six times that.

It felt like they were almost celebrating

in some sort of way.

It felt like a water party, I heard people say.

Generally, they were just local townspeople

who were taking advantage of the situation to get free fuel.

One thing that's very important here

is the fuel that was running

through this particular pipeline was very high octane.

Which meant that it released

lots of very, very, flammable gasses.

Because the day itself was relatively hot,

these gasses were sort of floating above the crowd.

It hadn't yet got to the stage

where it was low enough to be ignited.

So around six o'clock when it began to get darker

and the temperature dropped,

those gasses also dropped.

And so they sort of began to smother the crowd.

Now the interesting thing is that the fire

created inside a cigarette butt

is not hot enough to ignite petrol

but what is hot enough is static electricity.

And what would have probably happened

is that a static shock would have come from somewhere

where there were two hands that were being shaken

or friction created between two people

rubbing up against each other.

And that would have created a static shock

which would have been hot enough

to ignite these gasses

which had now sunk down.

And essentially within a matter of seconds,

the whole thing ignited.

And as the ignition of the fire settles down somewhat

then you see the people running from the blast.

And this is perhaps the most impactful moment

because the people that are running from the blast

are in flames.

Some of them trip over.

Some of them run towards the road.

Some of them are rolling on the ground.

Some of them are crying for water.

The local paramedics came in first

from the surrounding villages

and when they got to the field,

they saw people sort of writhing on the floor in agony.

They saw charred bodies that were completely incinerated.

Sort of falling apart.

People that were in their last moments of agony but

burned into that position.

What they saw was the most horrific thing

that you could possibly see, I can imagine.

The Mexican government has declared war on huachicolero.

Are they winning it?

I think it's far too early to say.

Will they win it?

Well I think if the drug war is anything to go by

then probably not.