LIMA (Reuters) - The death toll from an inferno in central Lima sparked by fireworks being sold ahead of New Year's Eve rose to 264 people on Sunday and could easily reach 300, a city official said.The blaze in a busy shopping district erupted on Saturday night but rescue workers were still finding corpses on Sunday afternoon, some of victims who had been asphyxiated by smoke in areas not touched by the flames themselves.
As dawn broke on Sunday blackened bodies littered the streets in the historic city center, some burned to the bone, others with their arms frozen in place as if they had been trying to fend off the flames.
President Alejandro Toledo issued an immediate ban on fireworks and officials seized huge boxes of rockets, crackers and other pyrotechnics from stores near the scene of the fire.
Other victims, including small, unrecognizable corpses of children, were still inside burned shops that once sold dolls, paint, or playing cards. Around 30 percent of the corpses found so far were of children, civil defense officials said.