Brazilian police have arrested four people in connection with a fire that broke out Saturday night at a club in Santa Maria, Brazil that left 231 people dead.
Two are club owners, and the other two members of the band that was performing, according to Zero Hora newspaper. A band's malfunctioning pyrotechnics triggered the fire early on Sunday, witnesses said, in an incident likely to raise concerns about public safety as Brazil readies to host the football World Cup in 2014 and the Olympics in 2016.
Inspector Ranolfo Vieira Junior said the arrests are for investigative purposes and have five-day limits. A preliminary investigation indicated that a band's pyrotechnics show ignited the fast-moving blaze early Sunday. One band member was among the dead.
There was no fire alarm. There were no sprinklers or fire escapes. And when a band member tried to put out a fire that had been started by pyrotechnics, the extinguisher didn't work.
Vieira declined to identify those detained, but the Brazilian newspaper Zero Hora quotes lawyer Jader Marques saying his client Elissandro Spohr, a co-owner of the club, had been held.
The paper said police also detained two members of the band that was performing when the blaze broke out in this university town of about 260,000 people. The band's guitarist told Brazilian media he saw flames lick the ceiling after the group's spark machine was deployed.
Following the nightclub fire, more than 100 people remained hospitalized for smoke, local officials said. Paulo Afonso Beltrame, a doctor helping coordinate the emergency response, said he was
"It's impossible to predict what will happen, because they are all in a very delicate state, but there's hope for all of them," said Beltrame, adding that more than 40 survivors had been sent to neighboring cities for treatment of burns and smoke inhalation. "One of the problems we're having here is that all these people need to be on respirators and we don't have enough respirators in the city."
