Tragedy strikes Brazil - Nite Club fire kills as many as 400 !

http://riotimesonline.com/brazil-news/rio-daily/nightclub-fire-kills-245-in-southern-brazil/

Club Fire Kills 245 in Southern Brazil: Daily

January 27, 2013 | Filed underDaily Update | Posted by Lucy Jordan

By Lucy Jordan, Senior Contributing Reporter

BRASÍLIA, BRAZIL – At least 245 people have died in a nightclub fire in central Rio Grande do Sul, police have said. A band’s pyrotechnics reportedly started the blaze at the Kiss nightclub in Santa Maria at 2:30 AM Saturday night.

A fire in a Rio Grande de Sul nightclub has killed 245 people, photo by Deivid Dutra/A Razão.

Police finished removing bodies from the scene late Sunday morning, Folha de São Paulo reported. In addition to the 245 confirmed dead by military police, 48 people are injured and receiving treatment.

Many people died after inhaling toxic fumes; and scores of people suffocated or were trampled as they fled the scene. Local media have reported that the club had only a single exit and panic spread as people tried to get out.

Firefighters had to cut a hole in the wall of the nightclub to access victims and extinguish the fire. Footage on Globo TV showed people crying outside, while firefighters knocked down walls to gain access using sledgehammers.

“It was really fast. There was a lot of smoke, really dark smoke,” survivor Aline Santos Silva, 29, told Globo TV. “We were only able to get out quickly because we were in a VIP area close to the door.”

This is the second biggest fire Brazil has seen. In 1961, 503 people died in a fire at the Brazilian Grand Circus, in Niterói, Rio de Janeiro state.

President Dilma Rousseff, who was attending the summit of Latin American countries and the European Union in Santiago, Chile, has cancelled her schedule to return to Brazil because of the blaze.

“I would like to say to the population of our country and of Santa Maria (RS) that we are all together right now,” she said, tearfully, in an interview outside her hotel in Santiago.

Rousseff said that ministers are mobilized to provide assistance to the victims and families involved in the tragedy.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/27/brazil-nightclub-blaze-high-death-toll

Brazil nightclub fire causes high death toll

Police and emergency services estimate more than 100 deaths after revellers suffocated or trampled in Santa Maria blaze

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• Jonathan Watts in Rio de Janeiro
• guardian.co.uk, Sunday 27 January 2013 08.21 EST

Victims of the Brazil nightclub fire receive medical assistance in Santa Maria. Photograph: Germano Roratto/AFP

More than 100 people have been killed in a Brazilian nightclub fire sparked by a band's flag-burning stage show.

Emergency services fear the death toll in the southern city of Santa Maria could rise because close to 400 revellers were in the Kiss venue when the blaze started. Police and firefighters at the scene said at least 180 were dead and 200 injured.

Many of the victims died inhaling toxic fumes during the rush to escape through the venue's single exit, according to local media reports.

Photographs of the scene showed firemen had to smash holes in the wall to get inside.

After the fire was extinguished, bodies were ferried by two trucks to a makeshift mortuary at the city gymnasium. The Globo newspaper said the first truck carried 67 bodies and the second 70.

"Fire services are looking for other victims. We can't give an exact number of victims. People started panicking and ended up treading on each other," a fire chief, Guido de Melo, told local media.

Witnesses told the Folha de São Paulo newspaper that the blaze began at about 2am when the lead singer of the band set fire to a flag that ignited foam sound-proofing material on the ceiling.

Fire department officials will issue a detailed report after a full investigation.

Many of the dead are likely to be students because Santa Maria is a university centre for the Rio Grande do Sul region and the usual class schedule had been disrupted by strikes.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2013/01/201312710532959443.html

Hundreds killed in Brazil nightclub fire

More than 200 people killed in blaze caused by a pyrotechnics show in the city of Santa Maria, local media reports. Last Modified: 27 Jan 2013 12:50 inShare1 Email Print Share Feedback

The fire reportedly started after a band playing in the club set off a flare, igniting the ceiling [AFP]

At least 200 people have been killed in a nightclub fire caused by a pyrotechnics show in the southern Brazilian city of Santa Maria, local media reports. Bodies were still being removed from the Kiss nightclub in the southern city of Santa Maria, according to Major Gerson da Rosa Ferreira, who was leading rescue efforts at the scene for the military police. Ferreira said the victims died of asphyxiation or from being trampled, and there were as many as 500 people inside the club when the fire broke out. Luiza Sousa, a civil police official in Santa Maria, told Reuters news agency the blaze started when a member of the band or its production team ignited a flare, which then set fire to the ceiling. The fire spread "in seconds," Sousa said. Rio Grande do Sul state's health secretary, Ciro Simoni, said respirators from all over the state were being sent to the scene. Santa Maria is some 300km west of the state capital of Porto Alegre, and it is a college town with a large population of students.