An explosion has ripped through a fireworks market on the northern outskirts of Mexico City, reportedly killing at least 31 people and injuring 70.
The explosion, which was caught on camera, sent a huge plume of charcoal-grey smoke billowing into the sky over the town of Tultepec. Images broadcast by Milenio TV showed smoke rising from the scorched ground and fireworks stands.
“People were crying everywhere and desperately running in all directions,” said 20-year-old witness César Carmona.
Crescencia Francisco García said she was in the middle of the grid of stalls along with a few hundred others when the thunderous explosions began.
As she ran away she saw people with burns and cuts, and lots of blood.
“Everything was catching fire. Everything was exploding,” Francisco said. “The stones were flying, pieces of brick, everything was flying.”
More than a dozen children suffered burns to over 90% of their bodies and were being sent to the US city of Galveston in Texas for treatment, said Eruviel Ávila, the governor of the state of Mexico. The state’s top prosecutor raised the death toll late on Tuesday to 31.
Ávila vowed to find and punish those responsible for the blast and provide economic assistance to those who had lost their livelihoods.
The explosion flattened the San Pablito market which is one of the mainstays of the economy in Tultepec and where many people make a living from manufacturing fireworks – often in clandestine workshops.
The Christmas season brings in brisk business, according to merchants at the market, as Mexicans stock up on pyrotechnics.
More than 80% of the 300 stalls at the market were destroyed by the explosion, said state official José Manzur. Local media reported there were 300 tonnes of fireworks on site at the time of the explosion.
The cause of the explosion is still under investigation. Officials in Mexico state, which surrounds Mexico City, said they were focusing their attention on the injured.
The director of the state government’s pyrotechnics institute, which regulates the fireworks industry, had called the San Pablito Artisanal Pyrotechnics Market one of the safest markets in all of Latin America “with stalls perfectly designed and with sufficient space so that there is not a chain reaction in case of a spark”, news website Animal Político reported.
Disasters are not uncommon in places such as Tultepec, where authorities have tried for decades to control a fireworks industry famed throughout Mexico for producing everything from firecrackers and sparklers to towering structures called “castillos”, which spin and explode and are installed at small-town festivals.
Fireworks are commonly sold over the Christmas holidays, but also prove popular additions to patron saint festivities, when celebrants set off rockets in the pre-dawn 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 customers being given improper permission to ignite explosive items, which set off a chain of explosions.
The market reopened the following year, but with more safety precautions including provisions that all structures must be built of brick and concrete and fireworks had to be kept beneath glass and not touched by customers. Firefighters were also stationed onsite.
The defence secretariat – which sells gunpowder for use in fireworks – also imposed new regulations, including limiting fireworks purchase to 10kg per person.
Reuters contributed to this report