At Least 32 Dead In Huge Explosion At Mexican Fireworks Market

Huge Explosion At Mexican

At least 32 people have been killed in an explosion that ripped through a large fireworks market in Mexico, a chief state prosecutor says.

Footage shows a massive plume of smoke in the sky above the open-air San Pablito Market in Tultepec, in the State of Mexico, just outside of Mexico City.

Alejandro Gomez, chief prosecutor of Mexico State, said the official number of dead had risen since the earlier figure of nine.

National Civil Protection coordinator Luis Felipe Puente told Milenio TV that 60 people had been injured.

The blast levelled stalls and left firefighters combing through ash and charred metal.

The military has been deployed to help emergency crews get casualties to hospital by ambulance and helicopter.

The Mexican Red Cross said it had deployed 35 ambulances and 70 volunteers.

The same market was hit by fire in 2005, with hundreds of stalls wrecked just ahead of the country’s Independence Day celebrations.

Hundreds of stands were also destroyed in another fire a year later.

Many people in Mexico set off firecrackers and rockets to celebrate holidays such as Christmas and New Year.