Anger rises over safety as day-care toll hits 42

HERMOSILLO, Mexico — As the day care swiftly filled with smoke, caretakers, neighbors and parents fought to evacuate 142 children — many of them babies and toddlers — through a single working exit until rescue crews arrived.

No fire alarm or sprinkler system had gone off, and one mother said a second door to the day care was bolted shut and nobody could find the key.

Forty children were killed in the devastating fire, which raised doubts about safety standards at more than 1,500 centers where Mexico's government provides low-cost care for at least 200,000 children.

President Felipe Calderon, who visited some of the 33 children hospitalized on Saturday night, pledged to launch a thorough investigation into the cause of a tragedy that has stunned Mexico. More than 5,000 attended a Mass for the children at a concert hall Sunday evening in Hermosillo.

Firefighters, parents and neighbors who rushed to help rescue the children said there was only one working exit — the front door — and that no fire alarm or sprinkler system went off. Several desperate civilians broke huge holes into the outer walls, including one man who rammed his pickup truck against the day care three times.

Yet the ABC day care — a converted warehouse in Hermosillo, capital of the northwestern state of Sonora — passed a safety inspection less than two weeks before the fire Friday, according to Daniel Karam, the director of Mexico's Social Security Institute, which outsourced services to the privately run center.

"How it is possible that they found no problems? Here we have the results," said Karla Gastelum, whose 3-year-old daughter and 2-year-old niece were at the day care but escaped unharmed. Four children in her daughter's class died.

The fire initially spread from an adjoining tire and car warehouse to the roof of the day care and sent flames raining down. Fire officials still don't know how it started.

Two of the most seriously injured children, a 3-year-old boy and girl, were sent to Shriners Hospitals for Children in Northern California. The boy, who was burned over about half his body, was scheduled to undergo several hours of skin graft surgery Sunday — the first of many operations he is likely to undergo, said Dr. David Greenhalgh, chief of burns at the Sacramento hospital.