The parents of the young Red Deer woman staying at the Mexican resort that was hit by an explosion on Sunday say they’re not sure what their daughter’s plan is for the rest of her holiday.
Blaine Harris said his daughter Stephanie, 20, flew out of Edmonton on Thursday for a week-long trip to attend a wedding at the Grand Princess Riviera Hotel.
Stephanie was one of 28 people who travelled to the resort in the city of Playa del Carmen for the ceremony that was scheduled to take place today.
Blaine said everyone from this group has been accounted for and are safe following the explosion that killed seven people, including five Canadians.
“We’re glad she’s safe and her group is safe and you just feel sympathy for the ones that don’t have that good of a result,” he said on Monday afternoon.
Stephanie called home later Sunday evening and at that point she had not had the opportunity to talk to the wedding party to see if they are planning on changing the date or location of their wedding, Blaine said.
The group was still staying at the large 676-room resort when she called as restaurants and bars at the hotel remained operational, he said.
“Most of the staff on location are making it business as usual.”
Blaine said Stephanie explained that the site of the explosion has been cordoned off and that things are settling down hourly. She, however, told her dad that she feels the resort is downplaying the severity of the explosion.
The Canadian Press has reported that the initial investigations suggest the blast was caused by a gas leak.
Blaine said Stephanie had gone out for a run and was not at the hotel when the explosion hit the lobby around 9:30 a.m. on Sunday.
Stephanie broke news of the tragedy to her parents as she sent a Facebook message to her mother Cheryl to let them know she was OK.
“We didn’t have any time to worry because that was our first knowledge,” Blaine said of hearing about the incident from their daughter instead of the media.
“But when you actually see the footage on the television in the evening, then it really starts to click in that, wow, that’s kind of close.”
Two Mexicans and five Canadians were killed in the blast that also injured six other Canadians.
The Canadian Press reported that Canadian casualties included 33-year-old newlywed Malcolm Johnson of Nanaimo, B.C., and 41-year-old father Chris Charmont and his nine-year-old son John of Alberta.
Meanwhile, 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.
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.”
ptrotter@www.reddeeradvocate.com
— With files from Canadian Press