Mexico explosions: Nineteen dead and at least 40 injured as blasts rip through fireworks factory in Tultepec

Deadly blast: 19 people have been killed in an explosion at a fireworks factory in Mexico
AFP/Getty Images
Fiona Simpson6 July 2018

Nineteen people have died and at least 40 were injured 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 road 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.

Huge blast: Smoke billows from a fireworks factory in Mexico
REUTERS

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 defence 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.

Women are escorted away from the scene of the blast
AFP/Getty Images

The government said emergency personnel 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 defence agency, said there were four blasts in total and the explosions started at an unauthorised, clandestine workshop and spread as flammable material shot into the air

An aerial view of the site of the explosions in Tultepec
AFP/Getty Images

He said the dead also apparently included one minor and a civil defence worker.

"The problem was that after the first explosion, people went running to help, and when the second explosion occurred, these people who ran to help were killed," Mr Puente told the Milenio news network.

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

But authorities have been unable to enforce safety regulations and registration requirements.

"We cannot continue to allow this kind of situation," Mr Puente said.

Additional reporting by Press Association.

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