Relatives of the 231 people who died in a Brazilian nightclub fire demanded answers yesterday as police questioned the club's owner and members of the band whose pyrotechnics show allegedly caused the tragedy.
Several coffins, many draped with the flag of the victim's favourite soccer team, lined a gymnasium that has become a makeshift morgue since Sunday's fire.
The death toll was revised from 233 to 231 because, officials said, some names had been counted twice. Eighty-two people remained in hospitals in and around the city of Santa Maria, at least 30 of them in a serious condition.
As shell-shocked residents attended a marathon of funerals starting in the pre-dawn hours yesterday, the focus began to shift to what will probably be a barrage of police investigations, lawsuits and recriminations.
"We can't trust in the ability of city hall, or the police, or anybody who permits a party with more than 1000 people under these conditions," said Erica Weber, who accompanied her daughter to a funeral for one of her classmates.
Most of the dead were suffocated by toxic fumes that rapidly filled the Kiss nightclub after the band set off a pyrotechnics display at about 2.30am, witnesses said.
The band's guitarist, Rodrigo Lemos Martins, said he doubted the band was responsible for the blaze: "There were lots of wires [in the ceiling] maybe it was a short circuit."
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