|
| A man carries an injured victim of a fire at the Kiss club in Santa Maria city, Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil, early Sunday, Jan. 27, 2013. Firefighters say that the death toll from a fire that swept through a crowded nightclub in southern Brazil has risen to 180. Officials say the fire broke out while a band was performing. At least 200 people ere also injured. |
PORTO ALEGRE,
Brazil (AP) -- Flames raced through a crowded nightclub in southern
Brazil early Sunday, killing more than 230 people as panicked partygoers
gasped for breath in the smoke-filled air, stampeding toward a single
exit partially blocked by those already dead. It appeared to be the
world's deadliest nightclub fire in more than a decade.
Witnesses
said a flare or firework lit by band members started the blaze in Santa
Maria, a university city of about 225,000 people, though officials said
the cause was still under investigation.
Television
images showed smoke pouring out of the Kiss nightclub as shirtless
young men who had attended a university party joined firefighters using
axes and sledgehammers to pound at windows and walls to free those
trapped inside.
Guido Pedroso Melo, commander
of the city's fire department, told the O Globo newspaper that
firefighters had a hard time getting inside the club because "there was a
barrier of bodies blocking the entrance."
Teenagers sprinted from the scene desperately seeking help. Others carried injured and burned friends away in their arms.
"There
was so much smoke and fire, it was complete panic, and it took a long
time for people to get out, there were so many dead," survivor Luana
Santos Silva told the Globo TV network.
The fire spread so fast inside the packed club that firefighters and ambulances could do little to stop it, Silva said.
Another
survivor, Michele Pereira, told the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper that
she was near the stage when members of the band lit flares that started
the conflagration.
"The band that was onstage
began to use flares and, suddenly, they stopped the show and pointed
them upward," she said. "At that point, the ceiling caught fire. It was
really weak, but in a matter of seconds it spread."
Guitarist
Rodrigo Martins told Radio Gaucha that the band, Gurizada Fandangueira,
started playing at 2:15 a.m. "and we had played around five songs when I
looked up and noticed the roof was burning"
"It
might have happened because of the Sputnik, the machine we use to
create a luminous effect with sparks. It's harmless, we never had any
trouble with it.
"When the fire started, a guard passed us a fire extinguisher, the singer tried to use it but it wasn't working"
He confirmed that accordion player Danilo Jacques, 28, died, while the five other members made it out safely.
Police
Maj. Cleberson Braida Bastianello said by telephone that the toll had
risen to 233 with the death of a hospitalized victim - he said earlier
that the death toll was likely made worse because the nightclub appeared
to have just one exit through which patrons could exit.
Officials
counted 232 bodies that had been brought for identification to a
gymnasium in Santa Maria, which is located at the southern tip of
Brazil, near the borders with Argentina and Uruguay.
Federal
Health Minister Alexandre Padhilha told a news conference that most of
the 117 people treated in hospitals had been poisoned by gases they
breathed during the fire. Only a few suffered serious burns, he said.
Brazil
President Dilma Rousseff arrived to visit the injured after cutting
short her trip to a Latin American-European summit in Chile.
"It is a tragedy for all of us," Rousseff said.
Most
of the dead apparently were asphyxiated, according to Dr. Paulo Afonso
Beltrame, a professor at the medical school of the Federal University of
Santa Maria who went to the city's Caridade Hospital to help victims.
Beltrame
said he was told the club had been filled far beyond its capacity
during a party for students at the university's agronomy department.
Survivors, police and firefighters gave the same account of a band member setting the ceiling's soundproofing ablaze, he said.
"Large
amounts of toxic smoke quickly filled the room, and I would say that at
least 90 percent of the victims died of asphyxiation," Beltrame told
The Associated Press by telephone.
"The toxic
smoke made people lose their sense of direction so they were unable to
find their way to the exit. At least 50 bodies were found inside a
bathroom. Apparently they confused the bathroom door with the exit
door."
In the hospital, the doctor "saw
desperate friends and relatives walking and running down the corridors
looking for information," he said, calling it "one of the saddest scenes
I have ever witnessed."
Rodrigo Moura,
identified by the newspaper Diario de Santa Maria as a security guard at
the club, said it was at its maximum capacity of between 1,000 and
2,000, and partygoers were pushing and shoving to escape.
Santa
Maria Mayor Cezar Schirmer declared a 30-day mourning period, and Tarso
Genro, the governor of the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul, said
officials were investigating the cause of the disaster.
The
blaze was the deadliest in Brazil since at least 1961, when a fire that
swept through a circus killed 503 people in Niteroi, Rio de Janeiro.
Sunday's
fire also appeared to be the worst at a nightclub since December 2000,
when a welding accident reportedly set off a fire at a club in Luoyang,
China, killing 309.
In 2004, at least 194
people died in a fire at an overcrowded nightclub in Buenos Aires,
Argentina. Seven members of a band were sentenced to prison for starting
the flames.
Several years later, in December
2009, a blaze at the Lame Horse nightclub in Perm, Russia, killed 152
people after an indoor fireworks display ignited a plastic ceiling
decorated with branches.
Similar circumstances
led to a 2003 nightclub fire that killed 100 people in the United
States. Pyrotechnics used as a stage prop by the 1980s rock band Great
White set ablaze cheap soundproofing foam on the walls and ceiling of a
Rhode Island music venue.
The band performing
in Santa Maria, Gurizada Fandangueira, plays a driving mixture of local
Brazilian country music styles. Guitarist Martin told Radio Gaucha the
musicians are already seeing hostile messages.
"People on the social networks are saying we have to pay for what happened," he said. "I'm afraid there could be retaliation".
