Brazilian cities crack down on nightclubs after deadly fire

SANTA MARIA, Brazil (Reuters) - Cities across Brazil are beginning to crack down on nightclubs to ensure they comply with fire regulations following a weekend blaze that killed 234 people at a club in the southern university town of Santa Maria.

The fire was Brazil's deadliest in half a century and resonated across the country, with many people demanding those responsible be prosecuted and that the government tighten up on safety.

Brazilians are outraged at what they see as lax regulation and corrupt officials whose oversights led to the tragedy. There are fears similar fires could happen at other clubs and public venues, especially as the country gears up to host the World Cup of soccer next year and the Olympic Games in 2016.

Sensitivity is also growing because Brazil is in the runup to next month's Carnival celebrations. The event routinely features throngs of unruly revelers in parades and street parties in cities across the country.

As funerals and an official investigation proceeded, government officials and lawmakers pressed for tougher laws. President Dilma Rousseff, who visited grief-torn Santa Maria over the weekend, urged local officials on Monday for more rigor in enforcing safety regulations.

Cities across the country quickly responded.

"We were all evidently shocked by the Santa Maria tragedy," Bosco Saraiva, the acting mayor of Manaus, a city of 2 million people in the Amazon region, said in a telephone interview. "Yesterday we started a total cleanup."

The campaign featured sudden club inspections and city authorities closed 17 because of fire hazards and expired permits. Americana, a city in the southeastern state of Sao Paulo, issued a blanket order on Tuesday for all nightclubs to shut down temporarily while new safety standards are discussed.

Brasilia and other cities including Sao Paulo, Salvador, Rio de Janeiro, Santos, Curitiba and Porto Alegre have also deployed inspectors. In Salvador, Brazil's third-biggest city, the mayor ordered the inspection of all entertainment venues, including Carnival installations now being erected.

Carnival floats and decorations in the past have been criticized by safety experts because they are often made with papers, plastics and other highly flammable materials.

'SOMEBODY HAS TO BE RESPONSIBLE'

Outrage over the disaster manifested in a march in Santa Maria, across headlines in national newspapers and in countless critiques in social media.

Cries of "Justice!" rose from a crowd of 15,000 people who marched through the center of Santa Maria on Monday night. Marchers carried flowers to a local gym that has served as a morgue and funeral parlor since the early Sunday fire.

After recounting, authorities said 234 people had been killed in the blaze, up from a previous tally of 231 victims. Another 122 people are still hospitalized, 83 of them on respirators.

Most of the dead were students suffocated by toxic fumes. Others were trampled as they stampeded toward the sole exit of the "Kiss" nightclub, whose permits were under review.

Witnesses said bouncers initially blocked the exit because they thought fleeing customers were trying to leave without paying for their drinks.

Families of the victims are demanding explanations.

"Somebody has to be responsible," said Elaine Marques Gon?alves, a mother who lost one son in the fire and has another critically injured.

"I will not get my son's life back, but I want the authorities to investigate and act, for the sake of other young people," the devastated woman said in a video interview on the website of the O Estado de S.Paulo newspaper.

Police on Monday detained the two owners of the club and two members of the band whose performance led to the blaze. Investigators say a flare lit by one of the band members ignited soundproofing above the stage, causing the calamity.

No charges have been filed against the detained men, but prosecutors said they could be held for up to five days for questioning.

Santa Maria's police chief, Marcelo Arigony, told local television that authorities still do not know how many people were in the club, which the fire department said was authorized to hold up to 700 people, and whether it was over capacity.

He said there was a security camera in the club, but there was no evidence it was working.

Experts say Brazilian safety laws seem sufficient on paper but that enforcement is weak and codes can vary from state to state. Marco Maia, speaker of Brazil's lower house of Congress, on Monday proposed setting up a commission to monitor police investigations into the fire and study the possibility of a single federal law that could unify regulations.

Unless authorities act to tighten inspections on a prolonged basis, however, a change in legislation might not make much difference. As it is, corrupt inspectors sometimes turn a blind eye to violations in exchange for bribes.

The Kiss nightclub appeared to have no fire escape, no alarm and no sprinklers. Experts said the soundproofing material that caught fire was banned.

"Inspection in this country is a joke. It's time for that to change," said the owner of several nightclubs in Sao Paulo, who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of his position.

Licensing for clubs is laden with red tape and often requires the hiring of middlemen who are able to navigate the bureaucracy - often through bribes or other forms of corruption. That, the club owner said, means that inspectors often don't know whether the sites they approve respect capacity limits, have functioning fire extinguishers or comply with other safety standards.

"It's a business, a mafia," said the club owner.

Claudio Beato Filho, head of a crime and public safety research center at the Federal University of Minas Gerais, said new laws would solve nothing unless safety inspections improve.

Without better enforcement, Beato Filho said, additional safety regulations "will change very little."

(Additional reporting by Maria Carolina Marcello and Peter Murphy in Brasilia; Eduardo Sim?es and Asher Levine in Sao Paulo; Writing by Anthony Boadle; Editing by Paulo Prada, Kieran Murray and Cynthia Osterman)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/brazilian-cities-crack-down-nightclubs-deadly-fire-184728160.html

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