bodies of the young college
students were found piled up just
inside the entrance of the Kiss
nightclub, among more than 230
people who died in a cloud of
toxic smoke after a blaze
enveloped the crowded locale
within seconds and set off a
panic.
Hours later, the horrific chaos had
transformed into a scene of tragic
order, with row upon row of
polished caskets of the dead lined
up in the community gymnasium
in the university city of Santa
Maria. Many of the victims were
under 20 years old, including
some minors.
As the city in southern Brazil
prepared to bury the 233 people
killed in the conflagration caused
by a band's pyrotechnic display,
an early investigation into the
tragedy revealed that security
guards briefly prevented
partygoers from leaving through
the sole exit. And the bodies later
heaped inside that doorway
slowed firefighters trying to get
in.
"It was terrible inside — it was
like one of those films of the
Holocaust, bodies piled atop one
another," said police inspector
Sandro Meinerz. "We had to use
trucks to remove them. It took
about six hours to take the bodies
away."
Survivors and another police
inspector, Marcelo Arigony, said
security guards briefly tried to
block people from exiting the
club. Brazilian bars routinely
make patrons pay their entire tab
at the end of the night before
they are allowed to leave.
"It was chaotic and it doesn't
seem to have been done in bad
faith because several security
guards also died," he told The
Associated Press.
Later, firefighters responding to
the blaze initially had trouble
entering the club because "there
was a barrier of bodies blocking
the entrance," Guido Pedroso
Melo, commander of the city's fire
department, told the O Globo
newspaper.
Police inspectors said they think
the source of the blaze was a
band's small pyrotechnics show.
The fire broke out sometime
before 3 a.m. Sunday and the
fast-moving fire and toxic smoke
created by burning foam sound
insulation material on the ceiling
engulfed the club within seconds.
Authorities said band members
who were on the stage when the
fire broke out later talked with
police and confirmed they used
pyrotechnics during their show.
Meinerz, who coordinated the
investigation at the nightclub,
said one band member died after
escaping because he returned
inside the burning building to
save his accordion. The other
band members escaped alive
because they were the first to
notice the fire.
The fire spread so fast inside the
packed club that firefighters and
ambulances could do little to stop
it, survivor Luana Santos Silva told
the Globo TV network.
"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,"
she said.
Most victims died from smoke
inhalation rather than burns.
Many of the dead, about equally
split between young men and
women, were also found in the
club's two bathrooms, where they
fled apparently because the
blinding smoke caused them to
believe the doors were exits.
There were questions about the
club's operating license. Police
said it was in the process of being
renewed, but it was not clear if it
was illegal for the business to be
open. A single entrance area
about the size of five door spaces
was used both as an entrance and
an exit.
Family members of those killed
walked around the gym in a daze
Sunday evening, shuffling
between caskets or holding one
another and weeping as they
identified loved ones and tried to
make sense of what had
happened.
Elaine Marques Goncalves lost her
son Deivis in the fire. Another son
who attended the college party at
the nightclub, Gustavo, was
barely alive after suffering two
cardiac arrests caused by smoke
inhalation.
She learned of the blaze after the
mother of her sons' friends called
her early Sunday.
"My boys were not home and I
had no news. I turned on the TV
— the tragedy was all over the
television," she said at the
makeshift morgue. "All I knew
was they had gone to a club, I
didn't know which one. I kept
saying: 'Where do I start? Where
do I go?'"
Television images from the city of
about 260,000 people showed
black smoke billowing out of the
nightclub as shirtless young men
who attended a university party
there joined firefighters using
axes and sledgehammers to
pound at the hot-pink exterior
walls, trying to reach those
trapped inside.
Bodies of the dead and injured
were strewn in the street and
panicked screams filled the air as
medics tried to help. There was
little to be done; officials said
most of those who died were
suffocated by smoke within
minutes.
Within hours the community gym
was a horror scene, with body
after body lined up on the floor,
partially covered with black
plastic as family members
identified kin.
Outside the gym police held up
personal objects — a black purse,
a blue high-heeled shoe — as
people seeking information on
loved ones crowded around,
hoping not to recognize anything
being shown them.
The gathering was a party
organized by students from
several academic departments
from the Federal University of
Santa Maria. Such organized
university parties are common
throughout Brazil.
Survivor Michele Pereira told the
Folha de S. Paulo newspaper that
she was near the stage when
members of the band lit some
sort of flare.
"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," he
said. "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.
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.
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.
"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
AP.
Sunday's fire 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.
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.

abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/90-dead-nightclub-fire-brazil-18327334

Na wah o, n the death toll might not be that much if not for the paying system @ d club

I read this news yesterday on yahoo..so gruesome indeed..it's unusual though,i don't think those deceased can really rest in peace..in the quest of catching fun. . .