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RIO DE JANEIRO — A fire ignited by a flare from a band’s pyrotechnic spectacle swept through a nightclub filled with hundreds of university students early on Sunday morning in Santa Maria, a city in southern Brazil, killing at least 232 people, police officials said.


Health workers hauled bodies from the club, called Kiss, to hospitals in Santa Maria throughout Sunday morning. Some of the survivors were taken to the nearby city of Porto Alegre to be treated for burns. Valdeci Oliveira, a local legislator, said he saw piles of bodies in the nightclub’s bathrooms.

Col. Guido Pedroso de Melo, the commander of the city’s Fire Department, said security guards had locked exits, which intensified the panic as people in the club stampeded to the doors. One police investigator at the club, Elizabeth Shimomura, told a television news channel, “It is a scene of horror.”

Survivors described a scene of mayhem as patrons rushed for the main exit. “I only got out because I am strong,” Ezequiel Corte Real, 23, told reporters. He said he helped others escape the blaze.

The disaster in Santa Maria, which is in the relatively prosperous state of Rio Grande do Sul, shocked the country. President Dilma Rousseff canceled appointments at a summit meeting in Chile to travel to Santa Maria, a city of about 260,000 residents that is known for its cluster of universities.

The disaster ranks among the deadliest of nightclub fires, comparable to the 2003 blaze in Rhode Island that killed 100 people, one in 2004 in Buenos Aires in which 194 were killed, and a fire at a club in China in 2000 in which 309 people died.

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Originally posted by Kwicko:

The disaster ranks among the deadliest of nightclub fires, comparable to the 2003 blaze in Rhode Island that killed 100 people, one in 2004 in Buenos Aires in which 194 were killed, and a fire at a club in China in 2000 in which 309 people died.

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Originally posted by FREMDFIRMA:

Jong, you are a bad, bad man, I shouldn't laugh.. but I did.

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Originally posted by Hero:
Fire and building control, car control, etc.

What we really need is birth control. Everyone born is immediately condemned to death. Generations of children, condemned to death...a long, slow, lingering death.

We need to stop giving birth...for the children.

H

Hero...must be right on all of this. ALL of the rest of us are wrong. Chrisisall, 2012

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Originally posted by FREMDFIRMA:

Jong, you are a bad, bad man, I shouldn't laugh.. but I did.

Anyhows, we already GOT those things Mikey, occupancy limits, building codes and whatnot - not totally clear on the specifics, but sufficient exits and a clear path to them is a requirement as far as I can recall.
That and certain safety reqs in regards to stage pyrotechnics.

The few similar incidents we've had here in the States have always come from someones violation of those codes, which despite a bit of wailing and whinging by folk with more greed than sense, come across to me as more of a mutual common sense agreement than most laws do.

Of course, whenever some petty local tyrant decides to misuse those codes as a weapon to abuse someone, it demeans them - something which IMHO *should* be punished MORE severely than violations of them (sometimes done in ignorance) since it requires not only malice aforethought but a substantial breach of ethics, then again I also feel that police who knowingly break the law oughta catch triple-sentencing, and yet all too often representatives of Gov get a free ride on these things, which is one reason WHY such laws and regs can never be really trusted.

If people knew that those in charge of such things could *NOT* maliciously misuse them, they'd be a little more accepting of them.

-Frem

PS. It was exactly this, mind you, which lead to the Killdozer.

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Originally posted by Kwicko:
The NRA will revoke your nonexistent membership, and Ted Nugent wants you dead. Or he just shit his pants. You can never really tell with ol' Ted.

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Originally posted by Kwicko:
Good to hear you support abortion rights.

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Originally posted by FREMDFIRMA:
...and ignoring the process when one finds it inconvenient demeans ALL the rights, making them easier to trample on...

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Originally posted by RionaEire:
Crap. That's horrible. Maybe they don't have very good rules about those sorts of things in Brazil? Even with rules though it only takes someone ignoring/breaking them for catastrophe to strike.
:(

"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya

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Survivors described a scene of mayhem as patrons rushed for the main exit.

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Originally posted by BYTEMITE:

Actually, they probably do have rules.

Here's the key statement involved in all these club tragedies:

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Survivors described a scene of mayhem as patrons rushed for the main exit.

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For some reason it's pretty common for people to stampede towards the exit they used to enter a building, instead of locating more convenient and less crowded fire exits. I've heard it's a psychological thing.

What's probably needed is to expand the roles of the bouncers to crisis traffic director. I mean for goodness sake, we can evacuate enormous ships with 1000s of people out on the ocean into lifeboats, and that's because the crews are trained how to get everyone out. Provided the captain doesn't turn coward and jump ship early on (the moron).

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In this particular case, there was only the one exit. The emergency exits were locked.

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But if places can't be bothered to even keep their emergency exits unlocked, it's not so much a problem of being inefficient and more of malicious endangerment.

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Originally posted by Hero:
What was that? I can't hear you over President Obama's illegal recess appoints, Tsars, and executive orders.

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Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
Strange. It seems to me there are much simpler solutions to those problems. Pay for drink, no credit cards, no tab, for example. Then one way doors.

But I suspect Utah clubs are not like other clubs, very tight regulations, many clubs don't even sell alcohol here because it's such a hassle to sort out the minors, so the main draw is the music and bands.

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Originally posted by FREMDFIRMA:

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Originally posted by Hero:
What was that? I can't hear you over President Obama's illegal recess appoints, Tsars, and executive orders.

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And where were you when that fucker Bush did that and worse ?
Hypocrite.

-F

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Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
Unfortunately, unless you have regulations that are enforced, most businesses won't bother themselves with the nuisance of providing a healthy and safe environment for their staff and patrons. These things cost both money and time, both things that management would not be willing to sacrifice unless forced to.

You need proper safety plans that have been rehearsed. you need someone designated to be in charge who knows the procedures. You need unlocked, unblocked clearly marked emergency exits, proper working smoke alarms, fire extinguishers, and in best case scenario a working sprinkler system.

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Originally posted by Kwicko:


Or, if you listen to the NRA, you need more pyrotechnics.

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Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
I was under the impression schoolchildren already were armed. I had friends who regularly brought knives to school.

And I think I might have had a swiss army knife I carried around in my backpack and forgot about, judging by the rusted, dust, and paper encrusted thing I pulled out of there a few years ago.

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Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:

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Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
I was under the impression schoolchildren already were armed. I had friends who regularly brought knives to school.

And I think I might have had a swiss army knife I carried around in my backpack and forgot about, judging by the rusted, dust, and paper encrusted thing I pulled out of there a few years ago.

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Exactly, so they should be armed more, with military style assault weapons, and stand guard at nightclubs in Rio. Good solution, eh?

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