Tag Archives: Fireworks

4th of July Celebration At Morningside!

By Kami Klein

Morningside is ready to light up the skies and celebrate the birth of our country with an entire week of events beginning on Saturday, July 1st until Saturday, July 8th!  With fascinating and informational Preparedness and Survival seminars, fantastic guest speakers, a partner’s picnic on the 4th, a spectacular fireworks display, joyful worship, and so much more, this week promises to be something wonderful for all ages!  

Please join us as we welcome John Shorey, who will be teaching survival classes all week as well as Bill “The Junk Man” Whaley, preparedness expert Dr. Paul Williams, and security expert, Darren Parker. We also have special guests, Mike and Cindy Jacobs, Pat and Karen Schatzline, Tom Horn, Jennifer LeClaire, Donna Howell and Derek Gilbert for live tapings on The Jim Bakker Show as well as other prophetic and knowledgeable speakers who will be making appearances.  We then invite you to come worship with us every night for our evening services led by the remarkable James Huey! Join James as he welcomes amazing speakers such as Bobby Conner and Hubie Synn!  

 

We hope that you will join us as we honor this great country with fun, food, fireworks and fellowship at Morningside! Check out our 4th of July festivities here!

Experts scour site of deadly blast at Mexico fireworks market

Police officers walk amongst the wreckage of houses destroyed in an explosion at the San Pablito fireworks market outside the Mexican capital on Tuesday, in Tultepec, Mexico,

By Noe Torres

TULTEPEC, Mexico (Reuters) – Teams of forensic investigators pored over the charred remains of fireworks market outside Mexico City on Wednesday after a series of blasts a day earlier killed at least 31 people and injured dozens more in a disaster marked by disbelief and tears.

Videos of the blasts at the San Pablito market showed a spectacular flurry of pyrotechnics exploding high into the sky, like rockets in a war zone, as a massive plume of charcoal-gray smoke billowed out from the site.

It was the third time in just over a decade that explosions struck the popular marketplace in Tultepec, home to the country’s best-known fireworks shopping and located about 20 miles (32 km) north of Mexico City in the adjacent State of Mexico.

Eruviel Avila, the state’s governor, said the explosions injured at least 72 people while another 53 remained missing.

“Everything was destroyed, it was very ugly and many bodies were thrown all over the place, including a lot of children. It’s the worst thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” said 24-year-old housewife Angelica Avila as tears ran down her face.

Avila spoke outside a nearby hospital as she waited for an update on the health of her brother, a fireworks salesman, who she said was burned and also suffered a heart attack.

The federal attorney general’s office opened an investigation, saying in a statement late on Tuesday that six separate blasts kicked off the destruction.

Director of Tultepec emergency services Isidro Sanchez told local television earlier on Tuesday that a lack of adequate safety measures was the likely cause of the blasts.

The vast majority of the market’s 300 stalls were completely destroyed by the explosions, said state official Jose Manzur, adding that the site was inspected by safety officials just last month and no irregularities were found.

In late 2005, explosions struck the same Tultepec fireworks market just days before independence day celebrations, injuring scores of people.

Another explosion gutted the area again almost a year later.

The market was particularly busy on Tuesday as many Mexicans buy fireworks to celebrate the upcoming Christmas and New Year’s holidays.

(Writing by David Alire Garcia; Editing by Simon Gardner)

108 Killed in India Fireworks Explosions

People stand next to debris after a broke out at a temple in Kollam in the southern state of Kerala, India

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, India (Reuters) – Indian police have detained five people after a fireworks display at a Hindu temple set off explosions and fire killing 108 people, an officer said on Monday, in one of the worst accidents at a religious festival.

Thousands of people were gathered at the temple at Kollam in the southern state of Kerala on Sunday for the pyrotechnic show to mark the start of the Hindu year when sparks ignited a cache of fireworks stored inside the temple grounds.

The district administration said it had not given permission for the fireworks display following complaints of noise and pollution.

Police officer Anantha Krishnan said the five taken into custody were employees of a fireworks manufacturer who was given the contract for running the show at the Puttingal Devi temple.

The head of the manufacturing unit was injured, one of 380 people who were in hospitals across the state with burns as well as injuries caused by flying concrete and debris.

But police had not been able to reach members of the temple management, Krishnan said.

Kerala is studded with temples managed by rich and powerful trusts that often flout local regulations. Each year temples hold fireworks displays, often competing to stage the most spectacular ones, with judges who decide the winners.

On Monday, grieving relatives of the victims were scouring the temple grounds for possessions of their loved ones among the shoes, handbags and other articles strewn in a pile of debris and a puddle, dark red with blood.

“There were so many men and women lying on the ground, lifeless,” said Anish Kumar, a resident.

The scale of the tragedy has ignited demands that fireworks shows be banned at crowded places in Kerala. The chief of the state unit of the Indian Medical Association, A. V. Jayakrishna, said he planned to file a petition before the Kerala High Court on Monday curbing the use of fireworks.

Such has been the outrage across the nation that Prime Minister Narendra Modi flew to Kollam within a few hours with a team of doctors.

Opposition politicians led by Rahul Gandhi also visited the temple site, demanding a thorough investigation into the cause of the fire which took place amid a state election to choose a new assembly.

Modi has faced public criticism for failing to respond quickly to disasters such as the floods in Chennai late last year. Large parts of the city were under water for days before government help arrived.

But Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party said he was focused on the task in hand.

“Ever since the Gujarat earthquake, in any disaster, the prime minister wants to be hands on,” said BJP spokesman M.J. Akbar, referring to Modi’s work in his home state when the 2001 quake hit.

“Where he keeps aloof – and rightly so – is in all these artificial, emotional, sound-bite controversies. He is consistent in his interventions and in his silences.”

For a map locating the temple: http://tmsnrt.rs/1SXsCVB

(Reporting by D.Jose; Additional reporting by Doug Busvine in NEW DELHI Writing by Sanjeev Miglani; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Man Sets Off Fireworks In Crowded Theater

A man walked into a filled movie theater in Hanover, Maryland and set off fireworks causing a panic when people believed someone was committing a mass shooting.

Police have not been able to identify the man who walked into the Cinemark Movie Theater in Arundel Mills.

“Everybody’s just jumping out of their seats and screaming,” witness Luis Andrade told CBS Baltimore about the explosion’s aftermath.  “We saw a gentleman say ‘there’s an emergency exit’ and we ran out.”

Police say it appears that the man who committed the act was pulling a prank.

“The person needs to be held responsible and brought to justice (even if a prank),” Lt. TJ Smith told reporters.

Police obtained photos of an African-American man wearing a red bandanna that they believe to have set off the homemade explosive device.  They are asking the public’s help in trying to track him down.