This Saturday, 25 years will have elapsed since April 22, 1992 became an immortalized date in the minds of Guadalajara residents, or Tapatios.
On that fateful day, a series of explosions ripped through the Guadalajara sewage system (thousands of gallons of gasoline had seeped into the pipelines), destroying 13 kilometers of streets in the city’s Reforma district.
The explosions killed 210 people, probably more, and marked a turning point for a city weaned on decades of political subservience. Not only did the ensuing anger dethrone a state governor and trigger the end of the reign of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) but it gave rise to a new dawn in open and investigative journalism. The watchword was that politicians should and could be held responsible for their actions.
In the end, the Mexican government refused to admit that state-owned oil monopoly Pemex was responsible for the explosions, despite investigators’ conclusions that thousands of gallons of gasoline had leaked from a corroded Pemex duct that ran directly above the sewer line.
Unfortunately, for many of those injured or left homeless by the blasts the compensation was insufficient and after years of fighting and haggling for justice with an intransigent bureaucracy, many simply gave up or died in the attempt.
Part of the problem, of course, was that all the victims came from what well-heeled citizens describe as “the wrong side of the tracks” – the “other” side of the Calzada Independencia. A few refused to be brushed aside, however, and have been a thorn in the side of authorities for two decades.
This week, Guadalajara Mayor Enrique Alfaro handed over four million pesos to the trust fund for victims of the explosions, fulfilling a promise made while campaigning for office in 2015.
Special services will be held in Guadalajara’s Barrio de Analco, the area worst-affected by the blasts, to commemorate the quarter-century anniversary.