8 Die In Ecuador Pipeline Bombing
By Gonzalo Solano
Associated Press Writer
Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2000; 1:29 p.m. EST
QUITO, Ecuador –– At least eight people were killed and 19 wounded Wednesday in one of three bomb attacks against Ecuador's main oil pipeline near the border with Colombia, the government said.
The victims were traveling in a passing bus shortly after midnight when the second of three blasts hit the pipeline in the Amazon jungle province of Sucumbios near the Colombian border, about 85 miles northeast of Quito.
The blast killed eight people and wounded 19, who suffered serious burns, authorities said.
Jose Sanchez, Petroecuador's chief of pipeline systems, said the explosion "reached a bus ... that was traveling the road near the pipeline."
Asked whether Colombian guerrillas might have carried out the attacks, Energy Minister Pablo Teran responded: "We must allow the competent authorities to investigate the reasons and motives."
Colombian rebels operate along the border and have often dynamited oil pipelines in Colombia to extort money and to protest what they call foreign exploitation of the country's natural resources. They frequently enter Ecuador's isolated jungle, but have not been known to target oil installations there.
The explosions caused some 3,000 barrels of oil to leak from the pipeline, most of which burned off in a blaze that died down when the pipeline was shut off, Sanchez said. The pipeline was expected to be repaired within a day, he said.
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