Mexico to issue rules for handling fireworks after latest blast

The Mexican government Tuesday announced a decision to draft guidelines for consumers' handling and storing of volatile material, hours after an explosion of fireworks killed 14 people.

Luis Felipe Puente, coordinator of the national civil protection agency, said national guidelines do exist for makers of fireworks, but the new rules aim to prevent further deaths among civilians.

Despite numerous similar accidents in the past, people continue to fall victim to "tragedies like the one we have just experienced," Puente told reporters. "And we want to, somehow, prevent them."

Among the 14 people killed in the fireworks explosion Monday night at a house in San Isidro, a community in the central state of Puebla, 11 were minors aged four to 15. Twenty-two others were also injured.

On Dec. 20, 2016, a massive explosion at a fireworks market outside Mexico City killed 35 people and injured many more. Endi