Fire spreads at Venezuela oil refinery after explosion that killed 41 - Washington Post

Government officials had previously said they had the blaze contained, and the spread to another tank was an apparent setback to their plans to quickly restart the refinery. While a thick column of smoke blew in the wind, Ramirez told reporters the fire was still contained.

"There is no risk of a bigger event," Ramirez said, without specifying how much longer it might burn.

Officials have said a gas leak led to the blast, but investigators have yet to determine the precise causes. Prosecutor General Luisa Ortega said at a news conference that 151 people were injured, 33 of whom remain in hospitals.

A 9-year-old girl was missing in the area, Health Minister Eugenia Sader said on television.

Criticisms of the government's response to the gas leak emerged from local residents as well as oil experts. People in neighborhoods next to the refinery said they had no official warning before the explosion hit at about 1 a.m. on Saturday.

"What bothers us is that there was no sign of an alarm. I would have liked for an alarm to have gone off or something," said Luis Suarez, a bank employee in the neighborhood. "Many of us woke up thinking it was an earthquake."

The blast knocked down walls, shattered windows and left streets littered with rubble.

People who live next to the refinery said they smelled strong fumes coming from the refinery starting between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. Friday, hours before the blast, but many said they weren't worried because they had smelled such odors before.

Then, a cloud of gas ignited in an area with fuel storage tanks and exploded.

President Hugo Chavez visited the refinery on Sunday. In a televised conversation with the president, one state oil company official said workers had made their rounds after 9 p.m. and hadn't noticed anything unusual. The official said that at about midnight officials detected the gas leak and "went out to the street to block traffic."

"And later something happened that set (it) off," Chavez said. "A spark somewhere."

Chavez visited some of the wounded in a hospital on Monday and said that more than 500 homes were damaged.

The disaster occurred little more than a month before Venezuela's upcoming Oct. 7 presidential election. Opposition candidate Henrique Capriles said the tragedy shouldn't be politicized, but he also strongly criticized a remark by Chavez, who had said "the show should continue, with our pain, with our sorrow, with our victims."

"It seems irresponsible, insensitive... to say 'the show should continue,'" Capriles told reporters in Caracas. He repeated past criticisms about the number of accidents at the state-owned oil company, and called for "a serious, responsible and transparent investigation."