Fire in Venezuelan nightclub kills 47

CARACAS, Venezuela -- Flames quickly engulfed a tiny, downtown nightclub packed with hundreds of dancers but lacking emergency exits, triggering a panicky stampede and killing 47 people, fire officials and victims said Sunday.

Twelve people were injured in the late Saturday night blaze at La Goajira discotheque.

Faulty wiring, a kitchen fire or even a carelessly discarded cigarette were all possible causes of the blaze, which erupted near the club's entrance just before midnight Saturday local time, said Fire Chief Rodolfo Briceno. Nearly all the dead succumbed to the smoke.

As many as 400 people were inside the discotheque, housed in the basement of the Hotel Venezuela in a densely packed commercial district, when someone yelled "Fire!," victims said.

The club was in two rooms with a total of about 1000 square feet.

"The fire began at the entrance. At first we thought it was a joke, but it seems the fire extinguishers didn't work and the blaze grew fast," said Jenny Cisneros, 29, who suffered burns to her arms and legs.

"Everything went up in flames. There were so many people, everyone was trampled as they tried to get out. Nobody could breathe," Cisneros told The Associated Press from her hospital bed.

Her sister, who also suffered leg burns, was next to her at the western Caracas clinic. Jenny Cisneros said tearfully that a friend was among the 17 women who died.

500 evacuated

Firefighters using oxygen tanks rescued people trapped inside the club and extinguished the flames early Sunday. They also evacuated another 500 people from the hotel and surrounding buildings inundated by smoke.

At daybreak, grieving relatives and friends stood outside the charred building in a poor district of the Venezuelan capital. The club's blackened, narrow entrance was roped off.

Detectives began the grim task of identifying the dead.

"We have information that the flames spread quickly in the small building, the escape routes were blocked, contributing to the magnitude of the disaster," Briceno said.

"There were more people in the club than its capacity could hold. There were three or four hundred people there when we arrived, and a lot of thick, dense toxic smoke."

The combination of overcrowding, no emergency exits, improvised electrical wiring, unlicensed kitchen and scant fire code inspections is a common one in this city of 4 million, Briceno said. There are not enough resources to monitor hundreds of similar clubs, some of which are open illegally, officials say.

"It's no secret that these types of clubs often have faulty wiring and that their electrical circuits are overcharged," the fire chief said.

"The problem is that nightclubs must have enough exits, and it isn't always observed," Briceno said, adding that disco owners often ignore firefighter warnings on capacity limits.

Saturday night's fire was the deadliest nightclub blaze in the Venezuelan capital since 1985, when 25 people perished in a discotheque fire, Briceno said.