A GPU-based computational framework is presented to deal with dynamic failure events simulated by means of cohesive zone elements. The work is divided into two parts. In the first part, we deal with pre-processing of the information and verify the effectiveness of dynamic insertion of cohesive elements in large meshes. To this effect, we employ a simplified topological data structured specialized for triangles. In the second part, we present an explicit dynamics code that implements an extrinsic cohesive zone formulation where the elements are inserted on-the-fly, when needed and where needed. The main challenge for implementing a GPU-based computational framework using extrinsic cohesive zone formulation resides on being able to dynamically adapt the mesh in a consistent way, inserting cohesive elements on fractured facets. In order to handle that, we extend the conventional data structure used in finite element code (based on element incidence) and store, for each element, references to the adjacent elements. To avoid concurrency on accessing shared entities, we employ the conventional strategy of graph coloring. In a pre-processing phase, each node of the dual graph (bulk element of the mesh) is assigned a color different to the colors assigned to adjacent nodes. In that way, elements of a same color can be processed in parallel without concurrency. All the procedures needed for the insertion of cohesive elements along fracture facets and for computing node properties are performed by threads assigned to triangles, invoking one kernel per color. Computations on existing cohesive elements are also performed based on adjacent bulk elements.