Police have recovered 245 bodies after a fire swept through a Brazilian nightclub. An estimated 900 people were inside at the time and most of the victims were trampled as they attempted to escape. MSNBC's TJ Holmes reports.
By Jeff Black, Staff Writer, NBC News
At least 245 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 told NBC News.
The toll was expected to rise, 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, at least?200 people were injured, police and firefighters told The Associated Press.
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.?
Agencia RBS via AP
People help a man injured in a nightclub fire in Santa Maria city, Brazil, on Sunday.
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 1,000 and 2,000 people and patrons were pushing and shoving to escape, the AP reported. Police estimated the crowd at some 900 revelers.
"It was really fast. There was a lot of smoke, really dark smoke," survivor Aline Santos Silva, 29, told Globonews TV. "We were only able to get out quickly because we were in a VIP area close to the door."?
President Dilma Rousseff cut short a visit to Chile and was returning to Brazil following the blaze, her spokesperson said.?
"It is a tragedy for all of us. I am not going to continue in the meeting (in Chile) for very clear reasons," she said.
?Sad Sunday!? Tarso Genro, the governor of Rio Grande do Sul state where the club is located, tweeted. ?We are taking all of the possible and appropriate actions,? the tweet read, according to a rough translation by NBC News. ?I will be in Santa Maria later this morning.?
The precise cause of the fire was still under investigation, authorities said. But Luiza Sousa, a civil police official in Santa Maria, told Reuters that the blaze started when someone with the band ignited what was described as a flare, which then set fire to the ceiling. The fire spread "in seconds," Sousa said.?
The tragedy in Brazil recalled other nightclub disaster. A fire in West Warwick, Rhode Island, in 2003 killed 100 people after pyrotechnics used on stage by the rock band Great White set ablaze foam used for soundproofing on the walls. A Buenos Aires nightclub blaze in 2004 killed nearly 200 people.?
Reuters noted that Brazil's safety standards and emergency response capabilities are under particular scrutiny as the country prepares to host the 2014 World Cup soccer tournament and the 2016 Summer Olympics.?
The Brazilian state?s Health secretary, Ciro Simoni, told the news service that emergency medical supplies from all over the state were being sent to the scene.?
Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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