Mérida, Yucatán — Passengers escaped a fire that destroyed an entire city bus in the Centro on Friday.
Fire enveloped the bus at Calle 66 and 53, in the primer cuadro of the city.
No injuries were reported. Police cordoned off the street and rerouted traffic.
A mechanical failure was blamed for the fire, which started in the engine around 8 p.m.. Flames spread to the entire vehicle in minutes after an apparent explosion.
Flames reached as high as the power lines, which also burned and fell to the ground, causing outages in the area. Photos indicate neighboring buildings had smoke damage.
Firefighters took 40 minutes to control and extinguish the fire.
One eyewitness in a vehicle behind the bus first noticed people on the street, taking photos, before she saw the fire.
Calling it “surreal,” she saw the driver opened his doors and let the passengers escape.
Drivers behind the bus had to back out of the one-way street before the engine exploded with “two large booms,” a witness wrote on social media
The bus was running the Ibérica route.
With information from Diario de Yucatán, Facebook
