By SIMON ROMERO
Neco Varella/European Pressphoto Agency
The funeral for Tanise Cielo, a victim of the Kiss nightclub fire that occurred in Santa Maria on Sunday.
SANTA MARIA, Brazil — The first funerals began before dawn on Monday in
this grief-stricken southern city for the more than 230 people killed
after a fire ignited by a band’s pyrotechnics spectacle swept through a
nightclub filled with hundreds of university students early Sunday.
One of the club’s owners and two band members were arrested for
questioning, according to an investigator, Ranolfo Vieira Jr., saying
that they could be held for several days.
Family members of those killed in the blaze cautiously welcomed the news.
“I’m burying my wife today,” said Leandro Buss, 35, whose wife, Marilene
Castro, 33, died at the club. Mr. Buss was among the dozens of families
grieving among coffins lined up in a municipal gymnasium in Santa
Maria.
“We’ll see who was responsible for this,” said Mr. Buss, a computer
technician, staring at the ground. “I don’t know,” he continued. “Maybe
we’ll see some justice since so many people were killed.”
Officials revised the toll downward overnight, according to news agency
reports, to 231 from 233 — most killed by smoke inhalation — while 82
were hospitalized, at least 30 in serious condition.
The disaster in Santa Maria, a city of about 260,000 residents that is
known for its cluster of universities, ranked as one of the deadliest
nightclub fires. President Dilma Rousseff left a summit meeting in Chile
to meet with survivors, and the government declared three days of
mourning.
The circumstances surrounding the blaze, including reports that guards
briefly blocked the exit, immediately raised questions about whether the
club’s owners had been negligent and whether enforcement of safety
measures was lacking.
Witnesses said the fire started about 2 a.m. after the band, Gurizada
Fandangueira, began performing at the club, Kiss, for an audience made
up mostly of students in the agronomy and veterinary medicine programs
at a local university. Murilo de Toledo Tiecher, 26, a medical student
at the University of Caxias do Sul who was at the club, said the band’s
singer lighted a kind of flare and held it over his ahead, accidentally
setting the ceiling on fire.
The band’s guitarist, Rodrigo Martins, told Brazilian radio that the
band had played about five songs when he saw that the ceiling was on
fire, according to The Associated Press. “A guard passed us a fire
extinguisher,” he was quoted as saying. “The singer tried to use it, but
it wasn’t working.”
He confirmed that the band’s accordion player, Danilo Jacques, 28, died,
but he said five other members made it out safely. Witnesses said
others near the stage, however, did not.
“The smoke spread very quickly,” Aline Santos Silva, 29, a survivor,
said in comments to the television network Globo News. “Those who were
closest to the stage where the band was playing had the most difficulty
getting out.”
With panic spreading, people stampeded to the exit, only to find it
blocked by security guards, according to witnesses and fire officials.
While it was not clear why patrons were initially not allowed to escape,
it is common across Brazil for nightclubs and bars to have customers
pay their entire tab upon leaving, instead of on a per-drink basis.
Survivors described a frenzied and violent rush for the main exit. Mr.
Tiecher said he and his friends had to push through a crush of people to
get around a metal barrier that was preventing the crowd from spilling
out into the street. He said some people became trapped after they
rushed into the bathroom near the exit, thinking it was a way out. Once
he was outside, he said, he tried to pull others to safety.
“If we saw a hand or a head, we’d start pulling the person out by the
hair,” he said in a telephone interview. “People were burned; some
didn’t even have clothes.”
NewYorkTimes
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