Updated at 7:30 pm ET: At least 232 people were killed after a band's fireworks show sparked a rapidly moving fire in a packed nightclub in southern Brazil and fleeing patrons were unable to find their way out, local police said. The bodies removed from the Kiss nightclub in the southern city of Santa Maria were taken to a gymnasium for identification, police said. Major Gerson da Rosa Ferreira, who led rescue efforts at the scene for the military police, told Reuters that the victims died of asphyxiation or from being trampled. In addition to the number of deaths, more than 100 people were injured, police said, and most remain hospitalized. Fire brigade colonel Guido Pedroso de Melo told O Globo newspaper that rescuers had difficulty entering the premises because of "a barrier of bodies" at the entrance to the club. Police officials had earlier reported that 245 people were killed. The death toll could still rise, police said later, from the people who are injured. Television footage monitored by Reuters overnight showed people crying outside the club as shirtless firefighters used sledge hammers and axes to knock down an exterior wall to open up an exit. Rodrigo Moura, who the newspaper Diario de Santa Maria identified as a security guard at the club, said it was at its capacity of between 1000 and 2000 people and patrons were pushing and shoving to escape, the AP reported. Police estimated the crowd at some 900 revelers. Fire officials said at least one exit was locked ...

• published: 28 Jan 2013
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• author: Marschieren