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Mexico fireworks market explosion leaves at least 27 dead Mexico fireworks market explosion leaves at least 26 dead
(about 1 hour later)
An explosion has ripped through Mexico’s best-known fireworks market on the northern outskirts of the capital, reportedly killing at least 27 people and injuring scores more. An explosion has ripped through Mexico’s best-known fireworks market on the northern outskirts of the capital, reportedly killing at least 26 people and injuring 70.
The explosion sent a huge plume of charcoal-gray smoke billowing into the sky. The explosion, which was caught on camera, sent a huge plume of charcoal-gray smoke billowing into the sky. Images broadcast by Milenio TV showed smoke rising from the scorched ground and fireworks stands. In the aftermath of the explosion, emergency crews were attending to victims and hosing down hotspots.
The blast at the open-air San Pablito fireworks market in Tultepec, about 20 miles (32 km) north of Mexico City, also injured at least 70 others, according to a tweet from federal police. A local emergency services worker told Reuters that at least 27 people had died. The blast flattened the San Pablito market in the municipality of Tultepec, where many in the population make living from manufacturing fireworks – often in clandestine workshops.
Isidro Sanchez, the head of Tultepec emergency services, said the death toll was preliminary as rescue workers scoured the site. The Christmas season also brings in brisk business, according to merchants at the market, as Mexicans stock up on pyrotechnics.
Images broadcast by Milenio TV showed smoke rising from the scorched ground and fireworks stands. Emergency crews were attending to victims and hosing down hotspots. The cause of the explosion is still under investigation. Officials in Mexico state, which surrounds Mexico City like a horseshoe and includes Tultepec, said they were focusing their attention on the injured.
National Civil Protection coordinator Luis Felipe Puente told Milenio TV that some nearby homes were also damaged. The scene remained dangerous and he asked people not to come within 3 miles (5km) to avoid danger or hampering the emergency response. Puente added that there was no choice but to let any unexploded fireworks burn off. The director of the state government’s pyrotechnics institute, which regulates the fireworks industry in Mexico state, had called the San Pablito Artisanal Pyrotechnics Market one of the safest market in all of Latin America “with stall perfectly designed and with sufficient space so that there is not a chain reaction in case of a spark,” news website Animal Politico reported.
In 2005, a fire engulfed the same market, touching off a chain of explosions that levelled hundreds of stalls just ahead of Mexico’s Independence Day. A similar fire at the San Pablito Market also destroyed hundreds of stands in September 2006. Disasters are not uncommon in places such as Tultepec, where authorities have tried for decades to control a fireworks industry famed through Mexico for producing everything from firecrackers to sparklers to towering structures called “castillos,” which spin and explode and are installed at small town festivals.
Many in Mexico traditionally celebrate holidays – including Christmas and New Year’s – by setting off noisy firecrackers and rockets. Fireworks are commonly sold over the Christmas holidays, but also prove popular additions to patron saint festivities, when celebrants set of skyrockets in the predawn hours.
The San Pablito market had suffered explosions previously.
The market ignited on the eve of Independence celebrations in September 2005, injuring 128 vendors and customers, according to press reports.. Officials at the time blamed a customers being improper permission to ignite an explosive item, which set off a chain of explosions.
The market reopened the next year, but with special safety precautions such as all structures being built of brick and concrete, no electricity or phone lines were installed and fireworks on-sale had to be kept beneath glass and not touched by customers. Firefighters always were stationed onsite.
The defence secretariat – which sells gunpowder for use in fireworks – also imposed new regulations, including limiting fireworks purchase to 10kg per person.