- 234 people dead and 80 remain in critical condition
- 180 bodies found in toilets as people mistook toilet sign for exit
- Club owner, the band's lead singer and security guard arrested
- Lead singer arrested while at funeral of fellow band member
- Club's fire certificate reported to have expired
- Firefighters couldn't get into club because of a 'barrier of bodies'
- 'Like a Holocaust film, bodies piled on top of one another' said policeman
- Articulated lorry takes six hours and five trips to remove bodies
- 100 victims to be buried today with a funeral every half hour
- Claims people were stopped from leaving until they had paid bar tabs
- Video shows rescuers trying to smash way into club with axes
Michele Cardoso, 20, died in the fire at Brazilian club Kiss after pleading for help on Facebook
Michele Cardoso, 20, was in the Kiss nightclub in Santa Maria, southern Brazil, when a fire started which left 234 people dead and 106 injured.
The medical student, who also worked part-time in the club's cloakrooms, had been at party for local university students with her sister Clarissa and boyfriend Joao Paulo. None got out alive.
Inspectors believe the blaze began when a band's small pyrotechnics show ignited foam sound insulating material on the ceiling, releasing a putrid haze that caused scores of university students to choke to death.
It comes as police arrested one of the owners of the nightclub, Elissandro Spohr, as well as the lead singer of the band Gurizada Fandangueira which was playing at the time the fire broke out, and the band's security man.
An arrest warrant has been issued for the other co-owner of the Kiss nightclub Mauro Hoffman, who is now considered a fugitive of justice.
The band's vocalist, Marcelo Santos, was detained this morning while he was attending the wake of his fellow band member who died in the blaze, Danilo Jacques.
At 3.20am on Saturday morning, 50 minutes after the fire is reported to have started, Ms Cardoso posted a message on Facebook using her mobile phone which read: 'Fire at KISS help'.
Over the following hours alarmed friends left increasingly desperate replies asking if she was alright, but her posts fell silent.
After Ms Cardoso was confirmed as among the dead, one friend wrote on her page: 'I never imagined that it was serious when I first saw her asking for help on Facebook in the early hours, until I woke up with a message from my mum telling me what had happened.'
Her father Sandro Cardoso took to Facebook yesterday to tell nightclub boss Elissandro 'Kiko' Spohr that he should move away from Santa Maria.
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Ms Cardoso posted this message on Facebook using
her mobile phone which read: 'Fire at KISS help'. It was sent 50
minutes after the fire is reported to have started
A Facebook picture of Michele Cardoso and her boyfriend João Paulo Pozzobon (right)
on a night out together on January 5th 2013. Ms Cardoso posted a plea for help on Facebook 50 minutes after the blaze started
Michele Cardoso posing in a nightclub picture dated May last year and posted on Facebook
Facebook profile picture of Ms Cardoso's sister Clarissa Lima Teixeira, who also died in the fire
He wrote: 'KIKO you killed my two daughters I think it would be a good if you moved from santa maria you don't have any idea of my pain this message goes to you and your family because the pain I'm feeling is inexplicable (sic)."
Meanwhile it was revealed today that most of the victims of Sunday morning's tragedy had died in the club's bathrooms.
Some reports claimed desperate revellers had mistaken the toilet signs for those for the emergency exit.
Santa Maria's military police chief Edi Garcia said he had taken more than 180 bodies from inside the toilets.
He said: 'The scene was terrible, so said to see. There were so many young people, and the space was very small.
Facebook image of Kiss nightclub co-owner
Elissandro 'Kiko' Spohr, (left) who was arrested this morning in
connection with Saturday's fire. Police are looking for his business
partner Mauro Hoffman (right)
The moment the band Gurizada Fandangueria, famed for their use of on
stage pyrotechnics, let off a flare which is believed to
have started the fire at Kiss Club in Santa Maria
Gurizada Fandangueira vocalist, Marcelo Santos
(fourth from left), was arrested this morning while he was attending the
wake of his fellow
band member Danilo Jacques (third from left)
A Facebook picture from September 2012 showing
arrested lead singer Marcelo Santos (right), and band member Danilo
Jacques (left) who died in Saturday's fire
Most victims died from smoke inhalation rather than burns in what appeared to be the world's deadliest nightclub fire in more than a decade.
One of the owners of the club is reported to have confirmed that they were in the process of renewing its licence to operate, and that its fire safety certificate had expired last year.
He is said to have received threats on the internet - as have surviving members of Gurizada Fandangueira.
Around 100 victims of the fatal nightclub blaze in Santa Maria, southern Brazil, are to be buried today, according to reports.
The city's Ecumenical Cemetery opened at 7.30am and will be conducting burials every half an hour, staff confirmed
Cladimir Callegari, father of Mariana Callegari,
one of the 234 victims from the Kiss nightclub blaze cries during her
funeral today
Relatives and friends of nightclub victim Evelin Lopes attend her funeral
Relatives carry a coffin of another of the victims as soldiers dig multiple graves to accommodate up to 100 bodies today
Relatives and friends of Tamise Cielo, one of
the victims of the Kiss nightclub fire, gather around her coffin during
the funeral at Santa Rita cemetery in Santa Maria, today
Livia Oliveira, mother of Heitor, one of the
victims of the Kiss night club fire, says her final goodbye above the
coffin during his funeral this morning
Relatives carry a coffin to a burial plot this morning after soldiers
were drafted in to dig plots. 100 burials are expected today
The death toll from Sunday's tragedy rose last night to 234 after three people died in hospital during the early hours.
Santa Maria's public security minister had last night lowered the official number of fatalities from 232 to 230, claiming that two names had been duplicated.
It later emerged that one more body hadn't been identified.
Relatives of victims of the nightclub fire
attend a collective wake at Santa Maria's municipal gymnasium where the
bodies were taken yesterday
A woman supports a relative of one of the victims as she clings to the coffin in tears
Relatives and friends mourn over the coffin
containing the remains of a fire victim at a gymnasium where bodies were
brought for identification in Santa Maria city, Rio Grande do Sul
state, Brazil
Families of the dead stand by their coffins lined up in the Santa Maria gymnasium yesterday during the collective wake
A relatives leans on a coffin containing a victim killed in the Kiss night club fire
Thirty-seven of those have been transferred to specialist units in the state capital, Porto Alegre.
He added than more than 300 people had been treated at hospitals around Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil's southernmost state.
He said: 'We spent the whole night accompanying patients who were in hospital. The main objective was to save as many victims as possible.
'The second objective is to help relieve the suffering of the victims' families. Psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers are in the gymnasium (where bodies were taken), in hospitals and in help centres. Just yesterday there were nearly 200 psychological consultations with relatives of victims.'
VIDEO Family and friends identify their loved ones as the nation mourns
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Relatives prays in the wake of a victim of the Kiss night club fire at the local cemetery yesterday
Police have also reportedly taken away fire extinguishers from the venue following reports security guards and band members tried to use them to put out the fire but none were working.
Mr Arigony added: 'I have very preliminary information that security guards did close the club's doors. But it wasn't in bad faith, since some guards also died.'
Last night the club posted a statement of their Facebook page claiming they were collobarating with police but insisting their staff "possessed the highest technical qualification'.
'In this first moment, the priority of the house is provide all necessary assistance to the survivors and families of those who died. And this is being done by providing information and the assistance of a multidisplinary team (psychologists, doctors, social workers etc.'
Survivors and the police inspector Marcelo Arigony said security guards briefly tried to block people from exiting the club.
Mourners stand by coffins of loved one as it was
revealed today that most of the victims of Sunday morning's tragedy had
died in the club's bathrooms
Relatives express their grief yesterday as it was revealed most victims died from smoke inhalation
rather than burns in what appears to be the world's deadliest nightclub
fire in more than a decade
Relatives and friends carry the coffin of a victim out of a gymnasium after the identification process
Inside the gymnasium where police and
firefighters delivered the 233 dead bodies in an articulated lorry, and
where relatives of the victims were tasked with identifying their loved
ones
Empty coffins and coffins with the corpses of the victims of the Kiss
nightclub fire are laid out as the victims are identified by relatives
at the municipal gymnasium in Santa Maria, southern Brazil yesterday
A man stands around coffins containing the
remains of victims after the bodies were identified at a gymnasium in
Santa Maria city
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff arrives at the sports centre where the victims' bodies are kept
'It was chaotic and it doesn't seem to have been done in bad faith because several security guards also died,' he said.
Later, firefighters responding to the blaze initially had trouble getting inside the Kiss nightclub 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.
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.
Police inspector Sandro Meinerz, who co-ordinated 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.
'It was terrible inside - it was like one of those films of the Holocaust, bodies piled on top of one another,' said Mr Meinerz.
'We had to use trucks to remove them. It took about six hours to take the bodies away.'
Television images from Santa Maria, a university city of about 260,000 people, showed black smoke billowing out of the Kiss nightclub as shirtless young men who attended the university party joined firefighters using axes and sledgehammers to pound at the hot-pink exterior walls, trying to reach those trapped inside.
These were the dramatic scenes moments after a
fire engulfed the nightclub, in the southern Brazilian state of Rio
Grande do Sul, killing at least 233 people by suffocation and trampling
and leaving 133 injured
Appalling loss of life: Firefighters work to
douse a fire at the Kiss Club in Santa Maria city, Rio Grande do Sul
state, Brazil, where hundreds of people died
People run to safety and try to rescue others
after a massive inferno tore through a Brazil nightclub in the early
hours of Saturday morning killing at least 232 people. A man is seen
carrying a victim, centre
Chaos: These were the dramatic scenes moments
after the fire engulfed nightclub Kiss. People died from suffocation and
after being trampled on
A survivor is consoled by an emergency worker after the terrible ordeal in the early hours of Saturday morning
Within hours a community gym was a horror scene, with body after body lined up on the ground, 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 recognise anything being shown them.
Teenagers sprinted from the scene after the fire began, desperately seeking help. Others carried injured and burned friends away in their arms. Many of the victims were under 20 years old, including some minors. About half of those killed were men, about half women.
The party was organised by students from several academic departments from the Federal University of Santa Maria. Such organised university parties are common throughout Brazil.
'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 some sort of flare that started the conflagration.
'The band that was on-stage began to use flares and, suddenly, they stopped the show and pointed them upward," she said.
VIDEO Amateur video shows firefighters battling nightclub blaze
Scroll down for more video
Firefighters stand at the burnt out entrance of Kiss night club yesterday
Aftermath: A view from inside the Kiss nightclub in Santa Maria which was ablaze in the early hours
Firefighters battle to put out the fire which tore through the Kiss Club in Santa Maria, southern Brazil
Emergency services say they feared at least 20 more bodies remained inside the building, and hundreds of others were injured
Horrific: A crowd stands outside the Kiss nightclub in the early hours of Saturday morning as the nightmare unfolds
Guitarist Rodrigo Martins told Radio Gaucha that the band, Gurizada Fandangueira, started playing at 2.15am '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 Major Cleberson Braida Bastianello said by telephone that the toll had risen to 233 with the death of a victim in hospital.
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.
A victim is carried through the street outside the nightclub as emergency crews rush to the scene
Rescue: Emergency services filled the street outside the club's entrance as more bodies were pulled from the charred building
Carnage: Locals help evacuate injured victims as clubbers look on in horror following the nightclub fire
Overcome: Police, ambulance staff and
firefighters helped the victims receive medical assistance in a street
outside the Kiss Club
Traumatised: A police officer helps a woman survivor next to the Kiss nightclub in Brazil's Santa Maria
Similar: A firefighter inspects a club after a fire in which 194 people died on December 31, 2004 in Buenos Aires
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,' Ms 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.
Dr Beltrame said he was told the club had been filled far beyond its capacity.
Devastation: Relatives of victims cry in the street after news of the fire is made public
'Large amounts of toxic smoke quickly filled the room, and I would say that at least 90% of the victims died of asphyxiation," Dr Beltrame said.
"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.
Santa Maria, at the southern tip of Brazil near the borders with Argentina and Uruguay, is a major university city with a population of around a quarter of a million.
Grief-stricken: As news of the tragic blaze
reached hundreds of relatives of the victims, they began to arrive at
the scene in complete shock
Tearful: Relatives of the victims of the fire console each other in their grief after more than 230 people were reported dead
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