MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - The death toll from a fire at a day-care center in northern Mexico rose to 35 children with at least 40 more hospitalized, many with life-threatening burns, Mexican authorities said on Saturday.
Mexican President Felipe Calderon said he has ordered an investigation into Friday’s fire at the ABC day-care center in the northern city of Hermosillo to find who is to blame.
As flames blocked the center’s doorway, employees and neighbors used cars to punch holes through a wall and stumbled over unconscious infants and toddlers as they tried to rescue them, witnesses said.
Smoke inhalation killed many children before rescuers could reach them, with the victims ranging in age from a few months old to about 3 years old, authorities said. It was unclear where or how the fire started, although it may have broken out in a nearby warehouse or a tire workshop, the government said.
“According to what our people saw, there was an explosion followed immediately by flames,” Daniel Karam, head of the Mexican agency responsible for health care and social security, said at a news conference in Hermosillo.
The city of about 700,000 people is located about 170 miles south of the border with the U.S. state of Arizona.
Calderon said he was rushing medical assistance to overwhelmed medical staff in Hermosillo, including air ambulances and specialists in reconstructive surgery.
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“I have ordered the attorney general, along with local authorities ... to investigate as soon as possible to find out exactly what happened and identify whoever may be responsible,” Calderon said in a speech during an event in the state of Quintana Roo.
FACILITY PASSED INSPECTION
More than 140 children were in the ABC day-care center when the fire broke out, Karam told reporters. Karam said the center had passed its last government inspection in May.
The previous death toll given by the government was 31 children, but four more died in the hospital overnight.
In addition, at least 40 more children remained hospitalized, authorities said. About 20 were in “extremely grave” condition, some with burns covering more than 70 percent of their bodies, the government said.
Six adults also were hospitalized in less serious condition following the fire, authorities said.
At a government auditorium, parents waited silently for their children’s bodies to be turned over to them.
At least one child was being flown to the Shriners children’s hospital in Sacramento, California, which specializes in burns and has been consulting with Mexican doctors, the hospital said.
“Our burn team here has been working all night with the medical professionals in Mexico to triage these patients, on the phone,” Shriners hospital spokeswoman Catherine Curran told Reuters.
Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico. 
35 children were killed and more than 40 were injured in a fire which roared through the ABC child care center in Hermosillo, Mexico on Friday afternoon. Among the injured were six adults, most who have yet to be identified. Over twenty other children have been hospitalized with burns. They have been transported to local hospitals and other medical facilities in the United States. 

Neighbors, employees and firefighters broke walls to rescue unconscious children and babies from the fire in the converted warehouse building which was equipped with only one exit.

Three air ambulances, medical equipment and fifteen burn specialists were dispatched to the scene where children between the ages of six months and five years old perished from smoke inhalation. The majority of the injured and killed were under three years of age, said government officials.
President of Mexico Felipe Calderón 
Red Cross rescue workers say that 100 children were being cared for when the fire broke out. Sonora state Gov. Eduardo Bours confirmed that 142 children were in the child care center. Already, 27 of the 31 child fatalities have been identified, as parents continue to await news on their children.

Preliminary reports state that the fire may have started in the neighboring tire and car warehouse and spread to the childcare center. President of Mexico Felipe Calderón has placed the attorney general, Eduardo Medina-Mora in charge of the investigation into the cause of the blaze.

Mexico's Social Security Institute also sent out resources to their privately run facility.

Hermosillo, population of over 700,000, is the capital of the Mexican state of Sonora  from the American border.