12 people dead scores injured after massive explosion rips through fireworks market outside Mexico City
At least 12 are dead and 70 are injured in raging inferno after giant explosion courses through fireworks market in Mexico
The explosion on Tuesday afternoon razed all 300 stalls at the San Pablito Market in Tultepec, near Mexico City
Huge plume of smoke seen above the open-air market
Large explosion at fireworks market in Tultepec, Mexico
The ensuing blaze razed Mexico’s best-known fireworks market about 15 miles away, on the northern outskirts of the capital, reports BNO News.
The fiery explosion occurred around 2:50 pm Tuesday, destroying the open-air San Pablito Market in Tultepec, which had more than 300 stalls. Video footage shows a huge plume of smoke billowing in the sky accompanied by the intermittent bursts of the exploding fireworks going off mid-air.
Rescuers couldn’t enter for a while until the rockets were done exploding and the secondary explosions continued more than an hour afterwards.
Officials and civilians were seen carrying away one of the injured while fireworks went off in the background. Some of those injured reportedly, have burns on up to 90 per cent of their bodies. Some have other serious injuries.
Mexico’s San Pablito Market in Tultepec explode in an unintended blaze of fireworks Tuesday afternoon, that left 12 people dead and over 70 people injured
Firefighters and first responders walk through the debris
A vibrant market is reduced to ashes and the rubble after an explosion ripped through the market with less than a week to Christmass
The blast could be heard and seen from miles away
Tultepec Mayor Armando Portuguez Fuentes told BNO News that 12 people had died and 70 had been injured in the blast. The explosion could be heard and seen from miles away.
Photos taken after the blast show market stalls reduced to charred remains, with most of the market blown to smithereens. Rescuers can be seen looking through piles of rubble.
A fire engulfed the same market in 2005, setting off a chain of explosions that destroyed hundreds of stalls just ahead of Mexico’s Independence Day.
A similar fire at the San Pablito Market also destroyed hundreds of stands in September 2006.
The body count was a dozen people dead and 70 injured. residents go through the charred remains of it’s more than 300 stalls
Many in Mexico traditionally celebrate holidays — including Christmas and New Year’s — by setting off firecrackers and rockets.
San Pablito Market, the largest in the state of Mexico, has official permission to sell pyrotechnics.
Tutelpec, which is about 25 miles north of Mexico City, has 50,000 inhabitants.
Aerial footage taken in the aftermath of the explosions shows clouds of white cloud all above the devastated market.
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