Grieving Mexican parents have begun burying their children after a deadly fire in a government day-care centre in the north of the country claimed at least 38 young lives.
Most of the fatalities from Friday’s blaze at the state-run ABC centre in the town of Hermosillo were under the age of two.
With many still hospitalised in critical condition, the toll was expected to rise.
Dozens of people carrying flowers and toys came to a small chapel on Saturday to bid final farewell to a three-year-old girl named Camila who died in the fire from asphyxiation.
Meanwhile, her four-year-old sister was fighting for her life in a hospital in Guadalajara.
Elsewhere, distraught 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.
“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.
Sonora state health secretary Raymundo Lopez said that 38 children had died and another 23 remained hospitalised, including 15 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 day-care centre, located in an Hermosillo working class neighbourhood, were taking an afternoon nap.
Some of the injured had been transferred to the western state of Jalisco to be treated by doctors who specialised 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 spokesperson 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 neighbouring tyre shop, a claim the shop owners quickly denied, according to news reports.
The local prosecutor’s office cautioned against premature conclusions as to what caused the fire.
In desperate scenes on Friday, people living nearby smashed through the cement walls of the centre with cars and vans to try to save the children.
Emergency services arrived a good while after locals began bringing victims out, witnesses said.
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 Bustamante, as he choked on tears. “There was a lot of smoke, but there were no children’s cries. They were all unconscious or dead.” – AFP