Brazilian police yesterday detained the owners of the nightclub where a fire killed 231 people, as well as two band members whose pyrotechnics they say triggered the blaze.

A blaze tore through a crowded nightclub in southern Brazil early yesterday, killing 232 people as the air filled with deadly smoke and panicked party-goers stampeded toward the exits.

A fire swept through a crowded nightclub in southern Brazil early today, killing at least 245 people and leaving at least 200 injured, police and firefighters said.

Marine biologists and veterinarians said the bodies of more than 500 penguins have been washed up on beaches in southern Brazil over the past week.

Rescue workers found dozens of bodies as they dug desperately through the wreckage of homes engulfed by mudslides in southern Brazil, boosting the death toll from rain-spawned hillside collapses and floods to 84.

Another review of the EU restrictions on imports of beef from Brazil is being undertaken this week, the outcome of which will be critical for the beef trade in Europe into 2007.

A spiraling storm lashed the coast of southern Brazil, killing two people, injuring at least 35 others and damaging thousands of homes, civil defence officials said today.

At least four people have died in Brazil after two days of heavy rain triggered mudslides and flash floods in the south of the country.