Fire in Buenos Aires club kills 133
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-12-31 13:47

The death toll from a fire in a crowded nightclub in central Buenos Aires rose to 133, police said on Friday.

More than 360 people were being treated for injuries in 14 hospitals, federal police told Reuters.

"There are versions that flares caused the fire, but I cannot confirm this until we have more information from the fire department," the city's mayor Anibal Ibarra told TN television.

Local media reported that as many as 5,000 to 6,000 people may have been inside the club listening to a band play when the blaze broke out an hour before midnight on Thursday.

At least 133 people were killed and 360 injured when a fire erupted in a crowded nightclub in central Buenos Aires, police said on December 31, 2004. Local media said as many of 2,000 people may have been inside the club listening to a band play. [Reuters]

Witnesses told Reuters reporters on the scene that a flare was shot into the club's ceiling, which was covered with foam. There was a stampede and many people fainted from inhaling smoke.

An injured man is helped by an Argentine policeman outside a nightclub in Buenos Aires, early December 31, 2004. [Reuters]

It was not immediately clear if fire exits and doors were unblocked.

"The only thing you were thinking about was that you were going to die," said a young man named Federico.

An injured man breathes with the help of an oxygen mask in an ambulance outside a nightclub in Buenos Aires, early December 31, 2004. [Reuters]

Police said the fire was extinguished quickly, but rescue workers continued to remove people on stretchers from inside the club.

Television showed pictures of the bodies of young people lying on the sidewalks outside the club.

Parents rushed to the scene desperate to find their sons and daughters amid the chaos. Dozens of ambulances took the injured to at least six hospitals in the city.

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