Fireworks depot blasts in Mexico leave 24 dead

MEXICO CITY: First, emergency workers rushed in to rescue the injured after a horrific blast rocked the town of Tultepec, a place already notorious for deadly fireworks accidents.

Then, 20 minutes later, a new series of explosions erupted, killing at least four firefighters, two police officers and a civil defense worker. In all, at least 24 people died and at least 49 were injured on Thursday, according to the government of the State of Mexico. A state official told local media Friday that investigators are looking at whether first responders may have contributed to the second wave of blasts by trying to extinguish the initial blaze with water, which reacts with some chemicals used in fireworks. “Federal and state prosecutors are carrying out investigations to determine whether the water poured to extinguish the first fire ... could have reacted with some element like magnesium to propagate the fire, rather than extinguish it,” said Alejandro Ozuna, the State of Mexico interior secretary. A fireman’s blast-damaged water truck was found at the scene of the blast.

Whatever happened, it was clear the first responders tried their best and made an enormous sacrifice.

“They wanted to save lives without knowing that the same thing was going to happen to them,” said Teresa Gonzalez, who heard the nearby blasts that began at 9:40 a.m.

Tultepec, a municipality of about 130,000 people roughly an hour’s drive north of Mexico City, is famed for small workshops that produce many of the fireworks used throughout the region — and for repeated accidents that have killed at least 70 people in less than two years.

Luis Felipe Puente, head of Mexico’s civil defense agency, said the workshops that exploded were “clandestine.”