Veracruz -- Mexico
Fireworks Blast Kills Dozens

-- Passers-by in Veracruz, Mexico, help firefighters removing wreckage to search a market stall that collapsed in a fireworks-related explosion and fire which engulfed an entire city block.

City officials had tried to shut down the fireworks stands Dec. 24, but stood down after stand owners beat them back with sticks and rocks.

Illegal fireworks stands ignited in the port city of Veracruz on Tuesday as revelers thronged a marketplace to buy New Year's supplies. The blaze quickly engulfed an entire city block and killed at least 28 people.

Police and ordinary citizens helped firefighters carry heavy hoses to the fire as they struggled to put out blazing cars, buildings and market stalls. Fireworks could be heard zipping through the air over the roar of the flames.

As firefighters brought the blaze under control overnight, they discovered more incinerated bodies at a clothing store and a shoe store. City fire spokesman Carlos Ortiz said 28 bodies were recovered and 50 people were injured, most from smoke inhalation.

He expected the death toll to rise Wednesday.

The blaze broke out in the early evening at outdoor street stands and spread rapidly to a nearby enclosed market, he said.

Ortiz said it was unclear how the blaze started, although there were reports that a passer-by threw a cigarette at a stand. The fire raged between the Hidalgo and Unidad Veracruzana markets, two major shopping areas in the popular port city 185 miles east of Mexico City.

City officials tried to shut down the fireworks stands Dec. 24, but stood down after stand owners beat them back with sticks and rocks, Ortiz said.

Fireworks explosions are common in Mexico, where people use sparklers, bottle rockets and small sticks of dynamite to celebrate holidays and special occasions. Many factories and stands operate illegally with few safety precautions.

Victims died clutching one another

-- Family and friends filed past burned bodies laid out on a morgue floor in search of loved ones after a deadly New Year's Eve fireworks explosion killed 28 people in this Gulf Coast city.    Some of the victims died clutching one another. Dozens of people examined tiny pieces of clothing on the remains Wednesday and searched for rings, chains or anything else to identify the bodies   "You must have a tough heart to do this," said a man, who went to the morgue to see if his fiancee  was among the dead.    The fiancee and her sister, never returned home after a spark set off boxes of illegal fireworks that blasted through a crowded market shortly before sunset Tuesday, igniting the entire city block. The explosions destroyed several businesses and dozens of market stands. Officials were still determining the source of the spark.    They had planned to get married next week. A blue sweater on one of the victims appeared to be hers. A piece of her sister's store uniform also was found  "We just wanted happiness," said the bus driver, sobbing.     Dozens of families spent the New Year holiday rushing to hospitals and searching around the burned buildings. Officials said 41 people were injured and 47 people were still unaccounted for. Authorities continued searching for bodies Wednesday, but they said they did not expect to find many more in the fire-ravaged stores.     Residents were asked to call home so their families could account for them.    Many of the victims were burned beyond recognition, and officials asked relatives to provide dental records to help identify them.    Victims were burned alive in the streets and in shops. Investigators said they found the bodies of 13 people at a clothing store, including five in a back closet.    Inside the blackened store, the metal blades of ceiling fans drooped like rabbit ears, melted by the fire's intense heat.    A man recounted how he and his 12-year-old grandson ran with hundreds of others to escape flying debris and a raging inferno that sent flames 130 feet into the air.    "It was thundering and the ground was shaking underneath us," he said. "We were all running, crying and yelling. It was horrible."    He returned to the site Wednesday morning, looking in disbelief at the remnants of destroyed wooden fruit stands, the blackened hulks of burned-out cars and ash-covered grapes on the streets.

When the clock strikes midnight on New Year's Eve, Mexicans traditionally eat a grape for each month of the year for good luck.  

The blast was not the first, nor the most deadly, fireworks explosion in Mexico in recent years. In 1999, 4 tons of illegally stored fireworks and gunpowder exploded in the central state of Guanajuato, killing 63 people.

In 1988, at least 68 people were killed in a fireworks explosion in Mexico City's sprawling La Merced central market.

Veracruz draws visitors from across Mexico for its extravagant celebrations that include giant papier-mache dancing clowns on stilts -- and often impressive fireworks displays.

Police raided the illegal fireworks stands at the Hidalgo market on December 24, but residents beat them back with rocks, bottles, and sticks.     On Wednesday, soldiers guarded warehouses holding four tons of illegal fireworks that authorities had seized the day before. Police said that four people had been detained for possession of illegal fireworks and that 30 additional police patrols were assigned to search for illegal explosives throughout the city.     "This is not like going after a criminal," Tellez said. "We are up against civil society and we need people's help to combat this."     Standing outside the morgue after identifying his 15-year-old nephew's body from a necklace with a gold-plated heart that was given to him by his mother, a man agreed something needs to be done.    "He was such a noble kid," he said, crying. "He didn't have a mean bone in his body. That's what makes this so difficult."

 

Dozens die fireworks blast

At least 28 people were killed in a powerful explosion and subsequent fire at a fireworks warehouse in the Gulf of Mexico city of Veracruz, officials said on Wednesday, lowering the official death toll from 37.

"Our official count shows 28 dead and 29 injured," Rodolfo Herrera, a spokesperson for the Veracruz city council, told AFP in a telephone interview.

Initially, the casualty toll was put at 37 dead and 70 injured, but Herrera explained the inflated numbers by confusion in the immediate aftermath of the blast.

"Because of involvement of several agencies in the matter, some of the bodies have been counted twice," he explained.

Late on Tuesday, Veracruz Mayor Jose Gutierrez said the explosion occurred in a building where gunpowder was stored near a makeshift fireworks market where pyrotechnics were being sold for New Year's festivities.

The cause of the initial explosion was unclear, officials said. But they said as much as five tons of gunpowder were stored in the building.

Television images showed charred bodies blown into nearby storefronts and traffic chaos near the market, crowded with holiday shoppers at the time of the blast.

Most of the injured suffered smoke inhalation after the explosion sparked a fire that blazed through 25 buildings, the mayor said.

The fire was later brought under control, allowing rescuers to search for survivors.

Gutierrez said authorities had last week tried to confiscate explosives in the neighbourhood, but many vendors refused to surrender their goods right before the New Year celebrations.

"They said that their rights were being violated, fought police with batons and rocks, and the seizure did not take place".

Mexico has been rocked by deadly fireworks accidents in the past.

In December 1988, a huge fire torched an illegal fireworks plant in the centre of Mexico City, killing 34.

A decade later, in 1998, a gunpowder warehouse exploded in the town of Tultepec, considered the "fireworks capital" of Mexico. The blast killed 10, injured 50, and left 30 homes destroyed and another 150 damaged up to 500 meters away from the explosion.

In September 1999, an illegal fireworks plant exploded in the western city of Celaya, killing 56 and seriously injuring 350.

In 2002, Mexico state saw 46 explosions at clandestine gunpowder depositories. A total of 12 people were killed in six of the blasts, according to reports in El Diario de Mexico.