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BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (Reuters) - A fire has torn through a Buenos Aires nightclub packed with young revellers celebrating the New Year holidays, killing at least 175 people after a stampeding crowd was trapped by locked exit doors, officials say.
At least 619 people were injured in the blaze, thought to have been caused by a flare fired into the club's ceiling during a rock concert, sending burning debris onto the crowd of up to 4,000 people who desperately fought to flee the flames and suffocating smoke.
"The fire spread in a minute and we were a mountain of people trying to escape," said survivor Ariel Monges, 25, who lost a friend and a cousin in the fire and was searching for another friend at a city hospital on Friday.
The blaze, which officials called one of Argentina's worst disasters, may have claimed more victims because four of the club's six doors were tied shut with wire, according to Interior Minister Anibal Fernandez.
"It appears they were condemned to walk into a trap," Fernandez said.
Mayor Anibal Ibarra said the emergency exit appeared to be shut "so that people wouldn't enter without paying" and firefighters had to break it open.
Most of the victims died from smoke inhalation.
The rock band playing at the Republica Cromagnon club in the gritty, rundown neighbourhood of Once warned the crowd not to shoot flares due to the fire hazard, the mayor said. But during the first song, an hour before midnight on Thursday, a group fired one into the highly flammable foam ceiling.
Flares and a whole array of fireworks are sold on streets all over Latin America for the New Year holiday festivities with little regulation.
SEARCH FOR MISSING RELATIVES
Lists at hospitals showed that most of the victims were in their teens and 20s. But young parents also took their babies and toddlers to the nightclub, and one journalist reported the women's bathroom was used as a makeshift nursery.
At daybreak, friends and relatives frantically scoured lists of patients at 14 local hospitals and searched for any scrap of information about victims, some as young as 6.
"I want to go identify all the corpses there are, wherever they are. I need to know where my granddaughter is," said a crying woman searching for 19-year-old Marianela Rojas.
A young man looking for his 11-year-old nephew justified young children being at the concert by saying the band was a "family band."
Officials said identifying victims was made all the harder by the fact that photo IDs were strewn on the nightclub floor by panicking clubgoers fighting to escape.
Many people searching for friends and relatives attacked the government for not enforcing safety codes and some called for the mayor to resign.
The blaze, which police said was extinguished quickly, was the worst in the Americas since a supermarket fire in neighbouring Paraguay last August killed nearly 400 people.
Many other fires have occurred in Latin America in recent years because of fireworks, including one in Lima, Peru, three years ago that killed more than 300 people in a crowded shopping area after an explosion at a fireworks shop.
Thursday night's fire recalled a similar blaze in the United States in February 2003 when a pyrotechnics display at the start of a heavy metal concert ignited sound-proofing material at a club in Rhode Island, killing 100 people and injuring nearly 200.
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I heard about that on the way into work. It's so unfortunate and there were probably some very young kids in that club.
Now I know why I don't leave the house anymore. Maybe those Jesus freaks are right and the end is near. Too many freaky things happening recently.
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What in the hell else am I sposed to call it? Jesus freaks fits.
BTW I go to church every Sunday... but I wouldn't say I'm a Jesus freak.
How about doomsdayer? Is that better?
You know I never mean to offend people. Cept Andii. Something wrong with that boy. lol!
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Now now kids, let's have some respect for the topic at hand. I am sure the dead don't need a bunch of arguing going on about this. You obviously did take offense, Lycan, or else you would have let it go completely. [img]wink.gif[/img]
This is a shame, obviously. It sounds like it was worse than the Great White fire. Isn't Magenta in Argentina? No, I'm not saying she was there, just curious as to if it is the main news story and such.
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This is really tragic, but what kind of moron lights a flare during a concert?? In all my years going to concerts I've seen firecrackers and screechers but never a flare. Most of the concerts I've seen with the fireworks were in big hockey arenas.
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Magenta's in Spain. Marky Glam is in Argentina.
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1) This is sad. The club cared more about its bottom line than the safety of their fellow man. As a result, people died. Tragedy.
2) As a 'Jesus freak', I'd be offended by Verucamin's comments, but won't. My skin's not that thin. [img]tongue.gif[/img]
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*our hero crushes 'birthday boy' Carl over the head with a chair 47 times* [img]wink.gif[/img]
Happy Birthday to you and Sandy. [img]biggrin.gif[/img]
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Oops, just saw that it's mine and Sinamin's birthdays too. Happy Birthday to us as well. Guess the birthday cake guy's been goin' loony on us.
Not meaning to hijack this thread. Let's get back to the topic at hand. Pray all the injured get better soon. Marky have any comments on this?
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ME OR MOSTLY OF US COULD BE A VICTIM OF A SIMILAR DISASTER!!! THE SAME OLD SITUATION!!! MANY PEOPLE INVOLVED BREAKING THE RULEZ THINKING THAT THINGS LIKE THIS WILL NEVER HAPPEN!!! WHEN, YOUNGS WE USUALLY ARE STUPIDS BUT WHO TAKE CONTROL OVER US???
THE ONE WHO SELL ALCOHOL (ILEGALLY) TO THOSE YOUNG PEOPLE IN THE STORE CLOSE TO THE CLUB???
THE ONE WHO HAS TO CHECK PEOPLE TO DON'T LET INTRODUCE PIROTECHNY???
THE ONE WHO CLOSE 6 OF 8 DOORS JUST CUZ CAN TAKE CONTROL OVER ALL THE DOOR TO DON'T LET ANYONE ACCESS WITHOUTH PAYING FOR THE TICKET???
JUST AGAIN TOO MUCH PAIN TO CONTINUE TALKING ABOUT THIS SITUATION, JUST I WANT TO KEEP WITH THE ONLY POSITIVE THING OF THIS SHIT AND IT'S ABOUT ALL THE PEOPLE WHO HELP TO DON'T LET THIS NUMBER OF VICTIMS BEING A LOT HIGHER!!! ALSO FINISHING BEING PART OF THIS LIST WITH THEIR OWN LIFE!!!!
