Fireworks blasts kill 24, injure 49 near Mexico City

MEXICO CITY — Twenty-four people were killed and at least 49 injured Thursday when a series of explosions ripped through fireworks workshops in a town just north of Mexico City.

The dead included four firefighters and two police officers who rushed to the scene after the first explosion, only to be killed by a second wave of blasts.

Video shot from a nearby highway showed a massive plume of smoke rising up from the area of the explosions in the town of Tultepec. Other images released by local media showed wrecked buildings and scorched ground in a rural patch of modest homes and small farm plots. Authorities said four small buildings were destroyed.

The government of the State of Mexico said in a statement that eight people from Tultepec were killed, along with the six emergency personnel and two others who have not yet been identified. The state civil defense office later raised the death toll to

19, but did not specify who the other victims were in a statement posted to its Twitter account.

The government said first responders were also among the injured. Helicopters took the wounded to several local hospitals, and more than 300 police were dispatched to the scene.

Luis Felipe Puente, head of Mexico’s civil defense agency, said there were four blasts in total and the explosions started at an unauthorized, clandestine workshop and spread as flammable material shot into the air.

Many residents in the town make a living by fabricating and selling homemade fireworks, and explosions are a regular occurrence.