HERMOSILLO, Mexico — Grieving parents buried their children today after a daycare fire killed 40 infants and toddlers, stunning Mexico and prompting its president to promise a thorough investigation.
Funeral processions drove slowly to churches in the northwestern city of Hermosillo decorated with balloons and flowers.
The family of 2-year-old Maria Magdalena Millan dropped white roses on her casket and attached a Dora the Explorer balloon to the cross marking her grave at one of the first funerals held Saturday.
“I love you and I don’t want to leave you here!” her mother screamed.
President Felipe Calderon arrived in the city late Saturday. He wished surviving children a speedy recovery and promised families full government support and a thorough investigation into the fire’s cause.
“I want to say to the mothers and fathers of the little ones who died that we share their profound sadness,” Calderon said earlier in the day.
The death toll rose to 40 on Sunday after two children died in hospitals, according to Sonora state health secretary Raymundo Lopez Vucovich. Most of the victims had died of organ failure caused by smoke inhalation, he said.
The fire initially spread from an adjoining tire and car warehouse to the roof of the ABC day care and sent flames raining down. Fire officials still don’t know how it started.
Firefighters carried injured children out the day care’s front door — its only working exit — and through large holes that a civilian knocked into the walls before rescue crews arrived, according to a fire department official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the fire.
Francisco Lopez, who works at nearby auto repair shop, said he said he rushed to the scene in his pick-up truck and rammed it in reverse three times against the wall of the day care to break a hole in it.
The deaths in Hermosillo, capital of the state of Sonora, again raised questions about building safety in Mexico. Officials cracked down on code violations last year after a deadly stampede at a nightclub killed 12 and a disco fire nine years ago killed 21. Both clubs were in Mexico City.
An estimated 142 children, ranging from 6 months to 5 years in age, were in the day care at the time of the fire, along with six staffers who looked after them, Sonora state Gov. Eduardo Bours told a news conference.
That ratio is in line with legal standards, said Daniel Karam, director of Mexico’s Social Security Institute, which outsourced services to the privately run center.
Some of the children had third-degree burns, according to the Hermosillo fire department official. Thirty-three remain hospitalized, 23 of them in Hermosillo, including 13 who are in critical condition, Lopez said. One of them is brain dead.
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