When I Was Young

Posted: 07 June 2009 1206 hrs

Police officers seal off the front of a building where children died in a fire in Hermosillo, Sonora state, Mexico

HERMOSILLO, Mexico: Mexico on Saturday mourned the deaths of at least 38 young victims of a daycare centre fire as parents carried out painful identifications of charred bodies.

Most of the fatalities from the Friday blaze at the state-run ABC daycare centre in Hermosillo, in northwestern Mexico, were under the age of two. With many still hospitalised in critical condition, the toll was expected to rise.

As fraught parents sat outside hospitals awaiting word on the fate of their children, questions were raised about how the fire began and whether deaths could have been prevented.

President Felipe Calderon cut short a trip to the resort town of Cancun and flew to Hermosillo, the capital of Sonora state, to respond to the tragedy, a presidential source told AFP.

He was scheduled to visit a hospital where victims have been taken and meet with local authorities, the source said.

“I have ordered the federal prosecutor to as soon as possible carry out investigations to help us know exactly what and how it happened, and to work out corresponding responsibility," Calderon said in Cancun.

Sonora state health secretary Raymundo Lopez said that 38 children have died and another 23 remain hospitalized, including 15 who are in extremely serious condition.

Sonora Governor Eduardo Bours said six adults had also been hospitalised after the blaze, which broke out when many at the daycare centre, located in an Hermosillo working class neighbourhood, were taking an afternoon nap.

Police officers seal off the front of a building where children died in a fire in Hermosillo, Sonora state, Mexico

Some of the injured had been transferred to the western state of Jalisco to be treated by doctors specialized in children's burns, said Daniel Karam of the Mexican Social Security Institute.

One was even flown to a burns unit at a hospital in Sacramento in the US state of California.

Jose Larrinaga, a spokesman for the local prosecutor's office, told reporters that it was too early to announce a final toll.

Most of the children died from smoke inhalation, officials said. Others died when the roof in the crib room collapsed.

Questions were already being raised about whether the deaths could have been prevented.

The centre lacked emergency exits and the structure was so weak that part of the roof caved in, on an area where many newborn babies were sleeping, reports said.

Local media suggested the fire had started in a neighboring tire shop, a claim the shop owners quickly denied, according to news reports.

The local prosecutor's office cautioned against premature conclusions, saying at the moment "it would be adventurous to pass judgment on what caused the fire."

In desperate scenes Friday, nearby residents smashed through the cement walls of the centre using cars and vans to try to save the children.

Emergency services arrived a good while after locals began bringing victims out, witnesses told AFP.

A 40-year-old man who lives in front of the centre and was the first to arrive told La Reforma daily how he handed burnt and lifeless bodies that he pulled from the building to his neighbours.

"It was a terrifying experience," said the man, identified as Roberto Bustamente, as he choked on tears. "There was a lot of smoke, but there were no children's cries. They were all unconscious or dead."

Some of the victims were buried Saturday, including the young daughter of a couple whose second daughter is hospitalized in serious condition.

- AFP/yb

From ChannelNewsAsia.com; see the source article here.