245 killed in Brazil nightclub fire

At least 245 people have been killed in a nightclub fire caused by a pyrotechnics show in the southern Brazilian city of Santa Maria.

A police official has said, reports Al Jazeera.

‘There are 245 dead and 48 in the hospital,’ Major Cleberson Bastianello, a military police commander in the southern Brazilian city of Santa Maria, told media.

Bodies were still being removed from the Kiss nightclub, according to Major Gerson da Rosa Ferreira, who was leading rescue efforts at the scene for the military police.

Ferreira said the victims died of asphyxiation or from being trampled, and there were as many as 500 people inside the club when the fire broke out.

Luiza Sousa, a civil police official in Santa Maria, told media the blaze started when a member of the band or its production team ignited a flare, which then set fire to the ceiling.

The fire spread ‘in seconds’, Sousa said.

Rio Grande do Sul state’s health secretary, Ciro Simoni, said respirators from all over the state were being sent to the scene.

Santa Maria is some 300km west of the state capital of Porto Alegre, and it is a college town with a large population of students.banglanews24.com

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