Mexico City: A massive, multi-coloured explosion decimated a fireworks market outside the Mexican capital on Tuesday, leaving it a charred wasteland and killing at least 29 people with dozens more injured.

Television images showed a flurry of pyrotechnics exploding into the early afternoon sky as a massive plume of smoke rose above the market. Fireworks detonated in a peal of clattering bursts that lit up the sky in a scene reminiscent of a war zone.

The technicolour blast was the third to strike the popular San Pablito marketplace in Tultepec, about 20 miles (32 km) north of Mexico City, in just over a decade.

‘We were near the bathrooms when there was an explosion at a stall and then a series of blasts came one after the other,’ said witness Federico Juarez. ‘Everyone started running to escape as bricks and pieces of concrete fell everywhere.’

Isidro Sanchez, the head of Tultepec emergency services, said in a local television interview that the death toll of 27 was preliminary as rescue workers scoured the site. A lack of sufficient security measures had likely caused the blast, he added.

The federal police said it had sent a forensic team to investigate the incident, adding that at least 70 people had been injured. Videos from the scene showed people frantically fleeing, while aerial footage revealed charred stalls and destroyed buildings.

Local media reported there were 300 tonnes of fireworks at the market at the time of the explosion.

Eruviel Avila, the governor of the State of Mexico, where Tultepec is located, said there were 13 children who suffered burns to over 90 percent of their bodies. They were soon to be sent to the U.S. city of Galveston for treatment, and he pledged to provide economic assistance to those who had lost their livelihoods.

The explosion is the latest in a long-running series of fatal blasts and industrial accidents that have roiled Mexico’s oil, gas and petrochemical industries.

A blast struck the Tultepec fireworks market in September 2005 just before independence day celebrations, injuring many people. Almost a year later, another detonation gutted the area again.

‘I offer my condolences to the relatives of those who lost their lives in this accident and my wishes for a speedy recovery for the injured,’ President Enrique Pena Nieto said in a tweet.

Pena Nieto is the former governor of the State of Mexico, the country’s largest which surrounds the capital.