Published at: 15/07/2026 09:00 PM

(El Nacional, 2001 and Latest News, December 20, 1982)

• The natural catastrophe that occurred last June 24 as a result of the two consecutive earthquakes, which occurred just 39 seconds apart, both lasting two minutes, whose unpredictable magnitude and devastating effects have been classified by the Japanese anti-seismic engineering and disaster management company Miyamoto International, as one of the three largest earthquakes in contemporary history.
• It is well worth remembering, because it is of scientific and historical rigor to do so, the tragedy that occurred in the state of La Guaira as a result of the industrial accident that, due to omission, negligence and non-compliance with the safety regulations of its owners (Electricidad de Caracas, C.A.-EDC) owned by the Machado Zuloaga family, left 180 people burned, 300 missing, 700 people with first, second and third degree burns, hundreds of charred cars and more than 500 family homes engulfed in flames that were reduced to ashes.
• The case refers to the tragedy that occurred in Tacoa on Sunday, December 19, 1982, at the Ricardo Zuloaga Thermoelectric Plant, in the town of Arrecifes, then Vargas Department of the Federal District, whose fatalities, injuries and survivors never obtained the immediate overwhelming assistance required to avoid a catastrophe, which could prevent, and how the EDC washed its hands in the face of the death of 10 journalists and media workers, 42 firefighters and 160 volunteers, including fishermen, neighbors, Civil Defense rescuers, National Guard (GN), Metropolitan Police (PM), Sectorial General Directorate of Intelligence and Prevention (DISIP), as well as desperate people fleeing the gigantic Firestorm they threw themselves into the sea to drown. Even a PM helicopter, with three crew members, flying over the place was hit by the thermal wave and exploded in the air.
• The next day, Monday 20th, the big headlines flooded all the newspapers with the news statement of the then Minister of the Environment, Carlos Febres Poveda: “There were failures in the plant”; and the president of the EDC, Oscar Machado Zuloaga, had to admit that “what you saw on television was not even 10% of what happened”.
• Despite the fact that from the first few hours it became known about the existing danger, due to the magnitude of the arson caused by the first large explosion; it having been demonstrated, according to the first reports, that the fire prevention equipment was in poor condition, that it did not work; that the alarm devices did not fire; and that the design for such purposes was insufficient for a thermoelectric plant of that magnitude, the government of Luis Herrera Campins did nothing to minimize the imminent risks of a second explosion. The Governor of the Federal District, Rodolfo José Cárdenas (famous for the Chuspa wagon scam), did not order the cordon off and immediate evacuation of the area, so the great disaster struck.
• The second tank exploded due to overheating (boiling over) or boiling, hours later, when it was believed that the flames were under control.
• The immense economic power of the culprits, in complicity with the Government, was vastly greater than that of the victims, their families and survivors, whose homes, cars and businesses were also destroyed by a stream of burning fuel that burned everything in its path after two large tanks containing 16,000 liters of fuel oil No. 6, owned by the Machado Zuloaga family, exploded.
• As soon as the fire was extinguished, as soon as the dozens of bodies were collected, the crime scene was also immediately modified and the big headlines that demanded justice for the 180 dead, 300 missing and 700 injured that the Machado Zuloaga family should compensate were erased.

CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY:

• At 5:58 in the morning of that Sunday, December 19, in a routine operation, the tanker of the Maraven oil company, the Murachi, discharged 16,000 tons of No. 6 fuel oil into the No. 8 tank of the Tacoa Thermoelectric Plant.
• Two company workers, Jesús Manuel Rodríguez and Luis Natera, who were supervising the operation, flew into the air and burned to death on the spot.
• The first thing that was done to determine the cause of the first explosion was to look for the plans that indicated the details of the safety system: valves, water points, exhaust channels, fire extinguishers, and so on.
• The biggest surprise of the technicians in charge of the thermoelectric plant was to find that none of this worked, that the system was useless, that there was not even enough supply of water and foam to control this type of fire.
• This was announced to the Fire Chief, José Antonio Bazán; to Lieutenant Gilberto Pernía García; to the Fire Chief of La Guaira, Mario Francisco Vegas; to Captain Arminio Guzmán Morales, Chief of the Services of the Sucre District Fire Station; and to Luis Eduardo Pérez Pérez, Associate Captain of the Fire Department Aeronautical.
• Such was the degree of irresponsibility regarding the serious deterioration and absence of reliable industrial safety systems, on the part of the EDC managers, who chose to remain silent and did not immediately warn of the imminent risk of being close to the Tacoa Plant.
• Six hours later, all of the above-mentioned firefighters, as well as reporters and civil protection brigades, died when a second tank, No. 9, exploded after noon at 12:45pm.
• And with them, dozens of people who were riding it disappeared. Others were unable to flee in time to save themselves from the firestorm that advanced, in a matter of seconds, several kilometers around the wrecked warehouse.
• In the course of the judicial investigations, the judge in the case, Carlos J. Soucre, after an exhaustive forensic investigation, determined that the company EDC was involved in the crime of mass industrial manslaughter and multiple wrongful injuries, because “the firefighting systems did not work properly due to lack of maintenance, because there was not enough foam concentrate and it was found that some pipes in the system were damaged, not as a result of the accident, but because of the absence of maintenance and because they were exposed to the elements”.
• All of this was dismissed by the Government, leaving unpunished the largest industrial homicide in our history.

Mazo News Team