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NYTimes.com > International > Americas
Fireworks Spark Blaze in Buenos Aires Nightclub, Killing 175By UKI GOÑI Published: January 1, 2005
UENOS AIRES, Dec. 31 - The rock band Los Callejeros was barely two songs into its show at a downtown club here late Thursday night when fireworks set off by someone in the audience ignited the foam ceiling, causing a fire that killed 175 people and injured more than 700.
Some victims were crushed in a stampede as they tried to escape debris falling from the ceiling. Others choked on the noxious gases generated by the burning foam, all within the space of a few minutes. One member of the band is reported missing.
Witnesses said the club, the República Cromagnon, was packed well beyond its 1,100-person capacity, with some survivors putting the number at four times that limit.
City officials said emergency exits had been blocked in violation of safety codes, contributing to the high death toll.
"Only two exits were open, the others were tied up with wire," said Aníbal Fernández, the interior minister. "These young people were doomed in a death trap."
On Friday afternoon, sitting on the steps of the nearby Ramos Mejía public hospital, where many of the victims were brought, Jorge Ramírez, a 31-year-old construction worker, recalled the moment the club caught fire.
"It was chaos, fire everywhere, then suddenly everything turned black when the lights went out," he said. His face was bandaged and he was missing a front tooth lost in the struggle to flee the club. "The fireworks were set off when the band had just started their show. The exits were closed, we had to escape through the same door we entered, a door that seemed to keep moving farther and farther away."
Among the victims were about a dozen young children, a fact related both to the ever younger age of rock audiences here and to an impromptu child-care center set up in the women's bathroom. City officials confirmed that there were at least 13 children in critical condition in the city's hospitals. It was the worst fire at an entertainment establishment in the country's history.
The use of unsanctioned fireworks has been a problem at prior performances of Los Callejeros. At a concert for an audience of about 5,000 at the Obras Sanitarias here in July, the lead singer, Pato Fontanet, had to stop the show twice because of the amount of fireworks being set off by fans, despite heavy control by security at the entrance. His sister and girlfriend were among the victims who perished at the nightclub.
"Callejeros is the band to whose concerts fans bring the largest amount of fireworks in Argentina," Martín Bizzio, the manager of the band, said in a television interview. "Controls are very strict, but a lot manages to get through anyhow. What you see in the shows is about 15 or 20 percent of what they try to smuggle in. The roof was 100 percent flammable, and that's how it happened."
Reports in the local news media said the owner of the República Cromagnon club, Omar Chaban, a well-known figure in Buenos Aires's active night scene, came out before the band went onstage, speaking to club patrons for 10 minutes and asking them not to light fireworks. But the audience only hissed in defiance, the reports said. He was detained by the police on Friday for questioning.
"The place had two fire exits but our reports tells us they were shut so tight they had to be pried open by the firemen," said Aníbal Ibarra, the mayor of Buenos Aires.
Other reports said that one of the exit doors burst open from the pressure of hundreds of people pressing against it, allowing those closest to it to escape. Dozens of shoes were strewn on the floor outside one of the exit doors, lost by people fleeing the fire as they rushed out of the building.
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