Experts Iffy On Swamp Gas Explanation Of Hotel Explosion

Some experts are skeptical about a claim by Mexican authorities that a previously undetected mass of swamp gas caused the deadly explosion beneath the Grand Riviera Princess Hotel.

Within hours of the blast that killed seven people, including five Canadians, officials were pointing to that explanation, but there are doubters.

The coastal state of Quintana Roo sits over one of the world’s best known cave systems, which lures divers and explorers to its caverns and idyllic water-filled sinkholes called cenotes. The region is also dotted with mangrove swamps.

The hotel, like other buildings in the area, was partly built on top of a cave, which reports say was directly beneath the lobby. The pocket was said to be three metres high and 120 metres wide.

Authorities say methane and other gases from a nearby swamp drifted into the cavern, built up to high levels and were then ignited by a spark from a cooking device.

Playa del Carmen Civil Defence Director Jesus Puc said previous inspections of the hotel _ the most recent four or five months ago _ included checks for gas leaks and “were quite good.” But Puc said the inspectors’ gas detector looks for butane used in cooking, not the type of gas emitted by the swamps.

“It’s almost imperceptible,” Puc said. He added that authorities have requested equipment able to pick up the swamp gas and other area hotels are to be checked for such gas accumulations over the coming days.

Asked how many hotels could be in a similar situation, Puc said there are “many, many hotels in the area,” though “not all of them have such swampy areas.”

Bil Phillips is a Canadian based in the state, who leads tours of underwater caves for a company called Speleotech. He says the chance of a natural build up of gases in one of the caves would be unlikely, if not impossible.

“It would sound to me like a gas accumulation was from their gas pipes,” said Phillips, who is also with the Quintana Roo Speleological Society. “All cooking and everything down here is from gas and propane and so maybe there was a leak and there was a faulty electrical or something that ignited.”

The region around Bowling Green, Ky., is another area where developers have built over limestone cave formations.

Western Kentucky University geologist Lee Florea said gases can accumulate in underground pockets because of contaminants such as petroleum that attach themselves in sediment in cave walls. When these break down, they can produce gases.

But Florea said he’d be cautious about the explanation offered in the Grand Princess explosion.

“What does seem suspicious is how quickly that conclusion was reached, and the fact that it’s not a very common thing,” said Florea.

“It’s not every day that you hear of these types of explosions, and if this were natural, it might be more frequent than that, considering the pace of development that has occurred in regions like that near the coastline.”

George Veni, director of the New Mexico-based National Cave and Karst Research Institute, said he’s never heard of swamp or methane gases causing an explosion in a karst cave, although he wouldn’t necessarily rule it out.

He pointed to incidents in the States that involved a build-up of fumes from underground gas tanks.

Veni said there are still very few experts in the karst landscape, the kind of cave-ridden, eroding bedrock underneath the Yucatan peninsula and 20 per cent of the United States.

“Bottom line, it speaks to the challenges of living, working, building in a karst area,” said Veni. “You really need to have your best technology, your best advanced planning before you build in karst because the unexpected does happen at times.”

Environmentalists have protested construction in mangrove areas of the state, and are now lending credence to the theory that swamp gas is to blame.

Ecologist Roberto Cudney described Sunday’s explosion as a predictable consequence of unchecked development.

“It makes complete sense,” said Cudney, an activist with the environmental group Mexico Silvestre, which works in Cozumel, an island just offshore from Playa de Carmen. “When you build over the mangrove … it doesn’t take away the whole ecological process that’s going on there. You still have water filtration, you still have a lot of organic material,” the breakdown of which releases the gas.

Police investigations into past Canadian deaths in Mexico have come under scrutiny.

The 2006 murder of a Woodbridge, Ont., couple at a Mayan Riviera hotel was criticized for poor handling of forensic evidence. Resort staff began mopping up blood and walking through rooms before investigators were able to go to work.

In that case, local authorities changed their story constantly on their theories about what happened to Dominic and Nancy Ianiero. Authorities kept two Canadian women from Thunder Bay, Ont., on their list of suspects for years, and failed to track down a security guard who had disappeared the day after the murders.

Late last month, the family of an Ottawa-area businessman helped to track down his body in a burned-out rental car in Guerrero state, on the western side of the country. They enlisted the help of Ontario Provincial Police to track his last credit card charges and where he had rented the car, evidence which was used to help lead police to the remains of Daniel Dion.

—With files from The Associated Press.