HERMOSILLO, MEXICO, AND MEXICO CITY — Rescuers fought smoke and tore at walls to get to those trapped inside. One desperate father used his pickup as a battering ram. Many of the victims were too tiny to call for help.
At least 38 children would die.
The northern Mexican city of Hermosillo was plunged into grief and shock Saturday as investigators sought to pinpoint what sparked a swiftly moving fire at a crowded day-care center a day earlier.
Officials said 142 children were in the center when the fire broke out. They ranged in age from 3 months to 4 years, according to an incomplete roll provided by authorities in Sonora, a border state across from Arizona.
On Saturday, cribs, baby carriers and blankets littered the ground outside the center. In the surrounding neighborhood, known as Y Griega, streets were nearly empty, the air thick with stunned grief. Residents placed votive candles and flower arrangements on the ground outside the yellow police tape that ringed the building.
An aide at the preschool described the fire as "explosive," and said rescuers were able to pull only a few of the children to safety.
"We began to smell smoke and the alarm went off," Maria Adriana Gasca Sandoval said in a video interview on the website of the Hermosillo newspaper El Imparcial. "But it was explosive and there was no chance to get more children out."
More than 40 children were hospitalized and at least six adults were being treated, although none were seriously injured.
A 3-year-old with burns to 80% of her body was taken Saturday to Shriners Hospitals for Children Northern California in Sacramento, accompanied by a parent.
"That's very critical in that age group," Dr. Tina Palmieri, the hospital's assistant chief of burns, told reporters.
The girl will need "a vast array of very complex services" and her recovery will take months, the doctor said.
Palmieri couldn't say whether more children would come to the hospital.
Other children would continue to be treated in hospitals in Hermosillo or sent to a hospital burn unit in Guadalajara, in west-central Mexico, officials said.
The scene Friday was chaotic, as rescuers sought to smash through walls to get inside the ABC day-care center, a converted warehouse.
