Brazil no safer a year after deadly club fire

Never again, officials vowed a year ago, would Brazil see a horror like the nightclub fire that killed 242 young men and women, all suffocated by toxic smoke that filled a windowless bunker of a building with no emergency exits.

Yet as Brazil marks the anniversary Monday of the deadly blaze at the Kiss nightclub, almost nothing concrete has been done at any level of government to improve fire safety. That’s stoking fears that another tragedy awaits, especially as tourists and locals pack clubs during the World Cup football tournament starting across the country in June.

“What killed those kids at that nightclub was our culture, a culture of not liking to obey laws,” said Luciano Favero, a fire prevention specialist based in Rio Grande do Sul state, where the Kiss fire occurred. “Brazil is a country that reacts; it does not prevent.”

It was about 2:30 a.m. on Jan. 27, 2013, when soundproofing foam on the ceiling caught fire in the overcrowded nightclub in the university town of Santa Maria. The lead singer of a country band onstage had lit a flare as part of a pyrotechnics show, sparking the blaze.

Investigators said the burning foam released cyanide, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide that quickly killed. Dozens of bodies were piled in twisted knots inside the club as hundreds stampeded through darkness, trying to reach a single row of four doors that served as both entry and exit. Aside from the dead, 630 people were injured, and about 90 of them still face grave health problems from smoke inhalation.

A day after the fire, President Dilma Rousseff presided over a previously scheduled meeting of new mayors from across Brazil, where she told them about the “indescribable pain” she witnessed upon visiting with victims’ families just hours after the blaze.

“I speak of that pain to remind all of us with executive powers of the responsibilities we have toward our population,” Rousseff said. “In the face of this tragedy, we have the duty to make the commitment, to ensure that this will never happen again.”

Those promises came to nothing, said Rodrigo Tavares, a private engineer and fire-safety consultant in Brazil.

“At first, we had this national uproar and many plans to make changes,” Tavares said. “However, in practical terms, the situation of security and fire protection remains the same.”

Monday 27 January 2014

http://www.salon.com/2014/01/27/brazil_no_safer_a_year_after_deadly_club_fire/