Hermosillo is in mourning after an explosion killed 23 people, including multiple children, at a store in the busy city center on Saturday.
At the police barricade barring the public from the burned-out facade of the Waldo’s discount store, Alma Paredes lit a candle at a small, makeshift altar on Sunday.
“It’s to light their path, and so that they rest in peace,” she said, as she bounced her 1-month-old boy in one arm.
She didn’t personally know anyone killed in this weekend’s blast. But the Waldo’s cashiers were always kind to her, she said.
The explosion occurred as the Sonoran capital prepared for the weekend’s Día de Muertos celebrations. The city canceled two nights of official festivities after the blast.
Questions are swirling around the cause of the explosion, which state prosecutors say at this point appears accidental. They’re looking into the possibility that it was related to a transformer located inside the building.
Edith Olivas was down the block when the lights suddenly went out across the city center and an explosion blew the glass out of the front of the Waldo’s, she said, plunging the area into chaos.
“I feel a lot of pain being here, the pain of the people,” Olivas said on a visit back to the site the next day.
As of Sunday, two people were in critical condition after the explosion and resulting fire — a 20-year-old woman and an 81-year-old man, according to state officials. Three more people remained hospitalized in stable condition.
The state prosecutor said Saturday evening that the majority of the people killed that day died from inhaling toxic gas.
Sonora Gov. Alfonso Durazo said he has ordered an "exhaustive and transparent” investigation into the causes of the explosion. He said on Sunday that two bodies remained unclaimed, and officials were working to identify them.
“Our priority is and will continue to be to take care of the families and the victims,” Durazo said in a video on social media.
The explosion comes after a 2009 fire at ABC Daycare in Hermosillo that killed 49 children, 35 who died initially and 14 who succumbed in the aftermath. The incident sparked allegations of criminal negligence on the part of government officials. That event lingers in the city’s consciousness as investigators seek to determine whether or not the Waldo’s had proper safety protocols in place.
State officials say 68 Waldo’s locations across Sonora have been closed since the explosion in Hermosillo as a preventive measure.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said on social media the day of the blast that she was in touch with Durazo to provide federal support.
EDITOR'S NOTE: This story has been updated to correct that the number of children who died in the 2009 ABC Daycare Fire was 49. That includes 35 who died initially and 14 who succumbed in the aftermath.
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State officials say a store that caught fire this month in Mexico was operating without state safety protocols in place. The tragedy came 16 years after a day care fire that killed 49 children in Hermosillo.
