The death toll was
expected to climb as firefighters continued to pull bodies from the Kiss
nightclub in Santa Maria, said Col. Adilomar Silva, the regional
coordinator of civil defense.
Most of those killed
appeared to have died of smoke inhalation, Silva said. Hundreds are
believed to have been injured, though an exact count was not immediately
available.
The fire started "from
out of nowhere" on a stage at the club and quickly spread to the
ceiling, witness Jairo Vieira told Band News.
Smoke billowed outside
the front of the building as the stench of fire filled the air, said Max
Muller, who was riding by on his motorbike when he saw the blaze.
Muller recorded video of a
chaotic scene outside the club, which showed emergency crews tending to
victims and dazed clubgoers standing in the street. Bodies lay on the
ground beside ambulances.
Friends who were inside
the club told him that many struggled to find the exits in the dark.
Muller, who was not inside the club Sunday morning but has been there
twice before, said there were no exit signs over the doors. It is rare
to see such signs in Brazilian clubs.
Video from the scene
showed firefighters shooting streams of water at the club and shirtless
men trying to break down a wall with axes.
Hours later, families
and friends searching for information were outside a nearby sporting
complex, where bodies were taken for identification, the state-run
Agencia Brasil reported.
Brazilian President
Dilma Rousseff became teary-eyed as she spoke of the tragedy to
reporters in Chile, where she has been attending a regional summit.
Rousseff said she was heading to Santa Maria later Sunday.
"The Brazilian people
are the ones who need me today," she said. "I want to tell the people of
Santa Maria in this time of sadness that we are all together."
The fire started at about 2 a.m. after the acoustic insulation in the Kiss nightclub caught fire, Silva said.
There was a pyrotechnics
show going on inside the club when the fire started. Authorities
stopped short of blaming it for the blaze, saying the cause was still
under investigation.
The incident called to
mind a 2003 nightclub fire in Rhode Island where pyrotechnics used by
the heavy metal band Great White ignited a blaze that killed more than
90 people.
Pyrotechnics were also
involved in a 2004 night club fire in Argentina that killed 194 people
and a 2009 explosion at a night club in Russia that left more than 100
dead.
The Kiss nightclub is popular with young people in Santa Maria, drawing between 2,000 and 3,000 people a night on the weekends.
The blaze broke out
during a weekend when students were celebrating the end of summer.
Students at many Brazilian universities return to school on Monday.
Santa Maria is home to the Federal University of Santa Maria as well as a number of other private universities and colleges.
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