Brazil club owners and band pair detained

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.

No charges were filed against the four men, but prosecutors said they could be held for up to five days as police pressed them for clues as to how the fire early on Sunday morning could have caused so many deaths.

Residents in the southern city of Santa Maria began attending a marathon of funerals yesterday. Many of the dead were university students who knew each other. Coffins, many draped with flags of the victims’ favourite soccer teams, lined a gymnasium that has been used as a makeshift morgue.

Most of the dead were suffocated by toxic fumes that rapidly filled the Kiss nightclub after the band set off a flare at about 2.30am on Sunday, authorities said.

The nightclub’s operating license was in the process of being renewed after expiring last year.

Witnesses said bouncers initially blocked the only functioning exit believing that fleeing customers were trying to skip out on their bar tabs.

Tarso Genro, governor of the prosperous southern state of Rio Grande do Sul where the disaster occurred, said police had taken the men into custody to ensure “this will never happen again.”

The death toll was revised down to 231 from 233 as officials said some names had been counted twice. Some 82 people remained hospitalised.

The tragedy came as Brazil prepares to host the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics, putting its safety standards and emergency response capabilities in the international spotlight.

President Dilma Rousseff visited the scene, visibly upset, on Sunday. Relatives and friends of the dead demanded accountability, signalling the start of a wave of police probes, lawsuits, and recriminations that could drag on for months or even years.

Based on testimony from more than 20 witnesses, investigators are now certain the band’s pyrotechnics triggered the blaze, said police official Sandro Meinerz.

He said initial reports that the club was operating beyond its capacity of 1,000 people were likely false.

“Witnesses said the club wasn’t as full as it had been in previous weeks, which surely avoided an even greater tragedy,” he said.

The band’s guitarist, Rodrigo Lemos Martins, said he doubted the band was responsible for the blaze. “There were lots of wires [in the ceiling], maybe it was a short circuit,” Folha de S.Paulo newspaper quoted him as saying.

The band’s accordion player, Danilo Jaques, 30, was among those killed but the other five members survived. Singer Marcelo de Jesus dos Santos and production engineer Luciano Bonilha, were taken into custody, Brazilian media reported.