1.28.2013

Brazil's Cocoanut Grove


Fire rips through crowded Brazil nightclub, killing 233
Excerpt:
"It was a really complicated scene. A lot of smoke, a lot of shoes that was left, cell phones, because everybody tried to get out of there running," he said. "While we were there, we saw the cell phones were ringing. It was parents, friends, trying to know about what was happening and nobody was answering." A fire swept through the packed, popular nightclub in Santa Maria early Sunday, killing at least 233 people -- enough to fill a large plane -- Brazilian Health Minister Alexandro Padilha told reporters. Of those, 185 have been identified so far. Many apparently died from smoke inhalation. Others were trampled in the rush for the exits, one security guard told Band News. More than 90 people were hospitalized, Padilha said, including 14 patients with severe burns. About 2,000 people were inside the club when the fire broke out -- double the maximum capacity of 1,000, said Guido de Melo, a state fire official.
Comment: For a long long time I've had an adversion to crowds. I do not attend our church's musical events because the auditorium is packed. I do not like crowded restaurants or theaters (about 6 times a year I'll take in a movie). More on the 1942 Cocoanut Grove fire. In my youth and in my city (although we were living in Pittsburgh at the time) there was the 1977 Beverly Hills Supper Club fire. Image above is from the Beverly Hills Supper Club fire. My adversion to crowds has grown since I broke my neck.

3 comments:

  1. WSJ on Brazil fire: Four Detained After Brazil Club Fire

    Survivors of the fire—Brazil's deadliest in nearly five decades—have said in local radio interviews that around 2 a.m. Sunday a Roman candle or emergency traffic flare that figured in a country-music performance ignited a fire in the roof of the club, called Kiss. Witnesses said either a musician or a security guard grabbed a fire extinguisher and tried to stop the fire. But the extinguisher didn't function, according to accounts by survivors and a band member in television interviews.

    What ensued was a chaotic scramble for the only way out: a single entrance in a large nightclub that had no emergency exits, according to police investigators. At least 232 people died, mainly of smoke inhalation, according to police. Around 130 were injured; officials said at least 10 of the injured were fighting for their lives.


    I've been in sleazy nightclubs (in my youth). Nothing like Brazil's Kiss! After the miracle of regeneration (Titus 3:5) that lifestyle sloughed off

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