One person dies and thirty are injured in an explosion due to a gas leak in Argentina

One person has died and thirty have been injured in an explosion due to a gas leak this Friday in a town on the southern outskirts of Buenos Aires, an incident for which two directors of the company in charge of the spare parts that were carried out at the site have been arrested, official sources reported.

The incident occurred in a central area of ​​the town of Remedios de Escalada, within the municipality of Lanús (about 15 kilometers south of the Argentine capital), while maintenance work on the gas pipelines was being carried out.

One person has died at the scene, while thirty have been injured and two remain missing, according to the Municipality of Lanús.

"The information collected indicates that an outsourced company hired by MetroGAS called Exgadet was working at the site, which carried out network renewal tasks and in one of the maneuvers with a tunnel boring machine they damaged the pipe of the distribution network," reported the Municipality of Lanús.

As confirmed by MetroGAS, the pipe breakage would have occurred more than an hour before the explosion.

"Given the incident, the company staff, instead of calling the Emergency Services and activating the relevant protocol, chose to report it to MetroGAS's internal emergency service, having lost very valuable time to carry out the evacuation of the area," reported the Municipality of Lanús.

For this reason, the prosecutor in charge of the case requested the arrest of two company directors.

The strong explosion caused a flare of several meters and severe damage to commercial premises in the area, although the full extent of the damage has not yet been determined.

Of the thirty injured, thirteen remain under observation and ten were discharged, while all residents were evacuated and operations continue in the area.