Fireworks explosion kills 19, injures 31 near Mexico City

Nineteen people were killed and at least 31 were injured Thursday when two explosions ripped through fireworks workshops in a town just north of Mexico City.

The dead included four firefighters and two police officers who rushed to the scene after the first explosion, only to be killed by the second blast.

Video shot from a nearby highway showed a massive plume of smoke rising up from the area of the explosion in the town of Tultepec. Other images released by local media showed wrecked buildings and scorched ground in a rural patch of modest homes and small farm plots . . .