Mexico daycare center blaze kills at least 29

At least 29 small children died, including many who were asphyxiated, after a fire raced through a daycare center in the northwestern Mexican border state of Sonora, police and officials said.

In desperate scenes, local residents smashed the cement walls of the center in state capital Hermosillo with cars and vans to try to save the children, said Jose Larrinaga, spokesman of the state attorney general's office, on Televisa television channel.

Around 25 children and five adults were being treated Saturday in local hospitals, including some "in a serious condition," Larrinaga said.

The children were aged between three months and two years, he added.

Radio reports said there were many newborn babies in part of the center where the fire cause the roof to collapse.

"Where's God? Where's God?" a police commander said as he came out of the center in tears, radio reports said.Between 50 and 70 children and a handful of care workers had been taking an afternoon nap when the fire broke out Friday, Larrinaga said.

Local media said that 176 children had been in the ABC daycare center.

The center, in a working class neighborhood in the south of the city, had a staff of around 20 people.

It belonged to Mexico's social security network, the Mexican presidency said in a statement which expressed President Felipe Calderon's "profound pain."

State investigators followed firefighters, Red Cross workers and police to the scene, according to a police statement.Local media suggested the fire had started in a neighboring tire shop, a claim the owners rapidly denied, according to news reports.

Meanwhile dozens of worried families gathered at the center as well as at hospitals around the city.

Medics transferred five children who had been identified by their parents to Sonora State children's hospital, a medical worker told AFP.At least 30 children with serious burns were transferred overnight to a specialized hospital across the border in Arizona, according to El Imparcial daily.Calderon called on the national social security director, Daniel Karam Toumeh, to personally visit families and injured children at the scene, the statement said. - AFP