http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-21223725

Quote:Speaking to local newspaper Diario de Santa Maria, she said the fire had begun after a member of one of the bands lit a flare (others said a firework) about 10 minutes into the show, setting fire to part of the stage.

According to her, the fire took hold of the club in less than three minutes.

"The band tried to put out the fire with water, but they didn't manage to," she said.

"After this, they tried with a fire extinguisher. It was all really quick."

This Sunday night, a band was performing a song at a night club. They used fireworks to make their presentation more impactant, but the acoustic foam in the ceiling caught on fire. Hundreds of people rushed to the only entrance/exit door of the night house, but the security guards blocked the passage, thinking they were leaving without paying. The fire quickly consumed the building, and many died asphixiated.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-21220676

This is the second worst fire accident in Brazil and third worst fire involving night houses accident in the world, and by seeing the number of deaths, it's easy to know why. I hope the families of the victims have power to overcome this tragedy, and wish for the survivors to recover.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-21220308

You would think people (in this case, the band) would pay attention to history and learn from its mistakes.

This is really awful, I wonder why the bandmate was even allowed to bring a flare or firework into the building.

I don't know if this is the right thing to say in this situation but this is how I feel:

nice job guards.
they didn't even see smoke or anything? why do they think that many people be trying to run outside in such a hurry??? doing your job is fine but I really don't think that many would be leaving at once and in such a panic just to get out of paying. :/
I'm not saying it's just their fault but really? the fact that over 200 died from one situation, especially one like this that could have been prevented, is goddamn stupid

maybe the managers will learn from this and actually install fire alarms and/or sprinkler systems??

How is it legal to only have one exit? Yes we may go over the top with safety here (Warning: These peanuts contain nuts) but this is just shocking safety measures and at the cost of so many...

It's not.

I blame stupidity for this. On part of the guards and the idiots with the fireworks.

How exactly do you leave a club without paying? Do you not pay before going inside or something in Brazil?

The lack of emergency exits aside, it seems stupid that the guards couldn't figure out that HUNDREDS of people rushing at them in a frenzy was quite a bit more serious than trying to skip out on paying.

They thought it was a fight breaking out. Still, they should have checked what it was all about.

Uh, how can you pay for food and drinks in advance

Ohhhhhhh it was a dinner club. Okay, I see.

I thought it was a concert club type place where you go and listen to music and can get food and stuff on the side, not a dining type place with entertainment.

If by dining you mean a place where people actually go for food, also no. It was most certainly a concert club or something of the sort.

Unless it's different there, here we don't pay right away. We get a standarized piece of paper which has everything you ate and drank marked down and then you pay later at the register, before leaving. Then you hand over this piece of paper while leaving. If you lose it, you have to pay a (quite big) fee to compensate.

Or I'm not getting what you mean at all

Very very different here. When you buy a drink, you pay for it. Unless it's a nice restaurant or something you pay for everything upfront.

Over here you pay for almost everything up-front.

Yeah, I don't get how the fuck people rushing at them means there is a fight going on.

that just makes no sense on the guard's part.

Stupidity. If people couldn't learn from past mistakes they'll never learn now. Why the hell no one has set up better regulations is beyond me.

It's probably a way to get more money from drunk people, as they're bound to lose the paper and/or not be aware of how much money they have left, since they're not using any right away. Most night clubs here are like this. I'm not sure if this is a standard business model they have to follow or something.

To be fair, creating a riot is the easiest way for a lot of people to leave without paying at all. I'm don't agree with what they did, but again, they were doing their job. Also it took way less time for them to unblock the door than most places make it look like. But of course, just that little time made the situation a lot worse and because of that regulations should be revised.

I haven't looked at the article but from these comments it sounds a lot like Egypt standards. At least in terms of the guards.

Either way 200 people isn't nothing, if it was simply injured that wouldn't be so bad but killed is tragic.