Three women were killed and about two dozen people injured at an Aliamanu home when a “cake bomb” filled with illegal aerial fireworks set off massive explosions at 12:01 a.m. at a large New Year’s Eve party.

At an afternoon news conference Wednesday at the Honolulu Police Department’s headquarters, Gov. Josh Green, Mayor Rick Blangiardi and leaders of city agencies repeatedly used words like “horrific,” “gruesome,” and “a war zone” to describe the chaotic “mass casualty” event that first responders found when they arrived at 4144 Keaka Drive just after midnight.

“It was a bomb. It was a fireworks bomb. It was a bomb that exploded,” Green said. He said a person lit a “cake bomb,” which contained multiple aerials, that tipped over and fired the explosives into the home’s carport, igniting a huge cache of other fireworks.

Two women were dead at the scene while a third in her early 20s died later at a hospital, officials said.

Honolulu Police Chief Arthur “Joe” Logan said 23 adults and three children suffered critical or serious injuries.

Dr. Jim Ireland, director of the Honolulu Emergency Services Department, said the transported patients were “mostly critical” and taken to hospitals across Oahu, while an unknown number of other less- severely injured people were transported to hospitals in private vehicles.

Green said he expected there will be one or two children under the age of 10 who will be permanently disfigured or die from their injuries. He later described two children, ages 1 and 3, who were severely injured.

A total of 13 city and federal ambulances made 14 trips to hospitals as first responders set up a triage area to prioritize the most seriously injured, Ireland said. The triage area had to be set up several houses away from the home because the street was so clogged with cars that first responders had a hard time accessing the blast site, he said.

Many of the injured were so badly wounded they couldn’t speak, and paramedics were unable to get their names and other vital information, according to Ireland.

Honolulu Fire Department Chief Sheldon K. Hao said one woman was found dead in the driveway of the home and another was on the street. Neighbors said the two were sisters, both mothers in their 50s, and one was a grandmother.

“It really looked like a war zone and like a bomb dropped right in front of that house,” Hao said.

Residents of Keaka Drive could be found later Wednesday sweeping up bits of glass, exploded fireworks, ash and other debris from the street.

“It’s heartbreaking especially for the kids,” said Art Balon, who lives next door to 4144 Keaka Drive. He estimated more than 25 children under the age of 10 were at the party and were injured.

Another man who came to the scene said his 2- year-old nephew remains hospitalized.

“The explosion was like no other,” said Balon, 43. “You would basically think it was a bomb. The whole house shook,” shattering windows.

Logan said police recovered “tens of thousands of dollars” worth of illegal fireworks from the home. The U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives assisted police Wednesday morning and is “standing by to support again if requested,” Jason Chudy, spokesperson for the bureau’s Seattle Field Division, told the Honolulu Star- Advertiser.

Logan said a fireworks “cake” containing 50 or so individual cartridges of aerial fireworks was lit and tipped over, shooting sparks and other pyrotechnic material into the carport and setting off the cache of fireworks.

Samantha Warren, 22, was standing outside her home across the street at midnight when the explosions began.

“One of the fireworks had gone off but didn’t go up,” she said. “It launched at ground level. It lit all of the remaining fireworks and they all went off at one time.”

“It didn’t seem like a big deal at first,” but when Warren realized they were all going off, she managed to hide in front of her truck parked in her garage “until it slowed down and we all ran inside.”

Jack Kaauwai Jr., 53, who has lived since 1972 on the corner of Keaka Drive and Pakini Street, was still on edge hours after the blast. He said he saw 30 people lying on the ground as several others sprang into action to assist paramedics.

“It was a big party,” said Kaauwai, who paid a short visit to the gathering and left just 10 to 15 minutes before the deadly incident.

“People was yelling and screaming and they was in pain. Paramedics told us what to do. The bigger guys helped them load the people. I seen elementary kids and teenagers,” he said. “Everybody was in that puff of smoke. The injuries felt like it was a war zone.”

His sister, Kristal Kaauwai, 38, said the two women who died were sisters, and one lived next door to them.

She said the son of the woman who lived next door was looking for his mother in the chaos. “I held onto him,” Kaauwai said.

“I saw bodies scattered all around,” she said. “I saw a child burned. A woman was running to bring the child to the ambulance.”

She also recalled seeing a young woman whose clothes had burned off and her hair was burned.

Other witnesses who spoke to the Star-Advertiser described victims in shock, asking to be doused in water to cool their burning skin. Jacob Samson, 21, said their skin was already peeling off and many had second- and third-degree burns.

“A girl’s big toe was blown open,” he said.

Still others were hit with shrapnel from the explosions.

Mike John, 23, visiting from Los Angeles, recalled seeing “people’s clothes were burnt off.” Another person was missing a leg but the worst, he said, was an infant whose “skin was all gone.”

Marietta Corpuz, 62, who lives across the street from the party house, had gone outside a couple minutes to midnight and stood near her family’s truck. She doesn’t remember how, but when the explosion occurred, she ended up protected under the truck’s tailgate with her 12-year-old daughter.

The Corpuzes’ ceramic- tile roof was cracked during the fireworks explosion.

Balon agreed with government officials that, “This year it has gone out of control. ‘Let’s beat last year. Let’s beat my next-door neighbor,’” he said, adding that illegal fireworks displays have been glorified on social media and are now normalized in Hawaii.

“It’s too late with all the casualties,” Balon said, too late for legislation and more police presence and patrols, tighter control at the ports, despite decades of pushing for what he would like to see, including “heftier penalties.”

But some of his neighbors said they still love fireworks.

Both Blangiardi and Green expressed frustration with the prevalence of illegal aerial fireworks in Hawaii and said they are determined to make major changes to curb their use.

“Enough is enough. This situation is out of control,” Blangiardi said, adding, “This is horrific. This needs to be a seminal moment” for the community to finally deter the use of illegal aerial fireworks.

Green echoed the sentiment.

The governor, an emergency room physician, emphasized that injuries were gruesome and extensive, with brain matter splattered on car and house windows across the street from the blast. He said the public needs to understand how gruesome the event was so that changes can be made to cut the use of illegal fireworks in Hawaii.

People were still shooting off aerials several houses down as the medics were driving by to save lives, Green said.

“I hope people wake up. … This is clearly a threat. … This is a threat to public safety and health.”

Green asked people with remaining fireworks from New Year’s to “please pause” and not set them off in the coming days. He said the state will have an amnesty program for people to drop off illegal fireworks.

The governor said he will be working with the state Legislature to address curbing illegal fireworks in Hawaii. Penalties are going to have to become “very, very severe” to deter the use of illegal aerial fireworks, he said, calling for possession of over 50 pounds of illegal fireworks to be elevated to a Class C felony with a five-year prison term and a $10,000 fine.

In addition to the three deaths at Aliamanu, a fourth person died from fireworks- related injuries in Kalihi overnight. HPD said at 11:04 p.m., a 19-year-old man suffered fatal fireworks- related injuries. He was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead at about 12:30 a.m.

Further details were not available.

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Star-Advertiser staff writer Peter Boylan contributed to this report.