MEXICO CITY (AP) — Six explosions believed to be the result of sabotage ripped apart natural gas pipelines for Mexico's state oil monopoly early Monday, the company said. There were no reported injuries.
Mexican state oil monopoly Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, issued a statement saying it believed the explosions, which forced the evacuation of 12,000 people, were deliberate.
It said the six blasts at about 2 a.m. (3 a.m. EDT, 0700 GMT) caused four fires. At least five pipelines were affected.
A small, left-wing guerrilla group claimed to have attacked a major Pemex gas pipeline in July, forcing at least a dozen major companies, including Honda Motor Co., Kellogg Co. and The Hershey Co., to suspend or scale back operations.
The July explosions affected sections of a major pipeline extending from central Mexico City to Guadalajara in western Mexico.
Those attacks sent the Mexican government scrambling to increase security at ''strategic installations'' across Mexico. It was not clear what security measures were in place at the pipelines that exploded Monday.
The new blast interrupted service along the pipelines, but the extent of its effects on businesses was not immediately clear.