CEJ #1

Sophie

Jan. 28, 2012

Deadly Blaze in Brazil

Rio De Janeiro

Simon Romero
NY Times Learning Network
January 27, 2013
International
http://www.nytimes.com

    Early Sunday morning, a fire was caused in a Brazil nightclub. It was 2:00 AM in the southern Brazilian city, Santa Maria, when the rock band, Gurizada Fandangueira was performing with pyrotechnics. The singer lit a flare and accidentally set the ceiling on fire. Soon afterwards, the club called Kiss, filled with hundreds of University students, turned into a frantic rush to get around a metal barrier and out of the club. Security guards blocked the exits from those who tried to escape at first because they unfortunately did not see the fire. In Brazil, people do not have to pay per drink, but pay as they leave. Because of this, the security guards believed that club-goers were trying to sneak away without paying. Murilo De Toledo Tiecher, a survivor who had been able to escape said, “Only after a multitude pushed down the security guards did they see.” Those who were lucky enough to get out of the club helped save as many of the others as possible. “If we saw a hand or head, we’d start pulling the person out by the hair. People were burned; some didn’t even have clothes.” Mr. Tiecher stated. Some students who were desperately trying to find a way out hoped that the bathrooms were possible exits and ran to them, only to find that they were trapped. It was said by Valdeci Oliveira that bodies were piled up in the bathrooms. On Sunday morning the bodies were taken by health workers to hospitals in Santa Maria, a city known for it’s many universities with 260,000 people. Some survivors were treated for burns at Porto Alegre, a city nearby. At least two hundred and thirty-three students and one of the five band members were killed, mostly from smoke inhalation. “The smoke spread very quickly. Those who were closest to the stage where the band was playing had the most difficulty getting out,” reported survivor, Aline Santos Silva. Many anxious families are still searching for their loved ones on the streets of Santa Maria. “I still think she hasn’t died,” told Cibelo Focco on Sunday evening who had not yet seen her daughter. The disastrous event caused President Dilma Rousseff to cancel a meeting in Chile to come to Santa Maria. The president spent much of her early career there and cried as she learned more about what had happened.  The deeply upset president summarized the misfortune in saying, “This is a tragedy for all of us.”
    The author, Simon Romero, shows no opinion in his article. It is made up of facts and quotes and there appears to be no bias. The fire in Brazil is an event in which nobody can agree with. It was an accident that people will always have to live with and it is not a matter of whether people agreed with it or not, it simply happened and there is nothing that can be changed about that.  Fires and other natural disasters are unexpected changes that affect so many lives everyday. In this developing nation, there are laws to prevent this type of thing from happening, along with enough money and protection services. Unfortunately, they are not well enough enforced. Rules such as a moderated amount of people in the same building, communication with the security guards, and a certain number of exits could have possibly stopped the fire from happening. A book I have read called Hurricane Katrina could relate to this event in the sense that they are both tragic and life changing. To put it briefly, Hurricane Katrina was about a fictional boy who searched for his family with a dog he found alone in a house. They eventually reunited with the boy’s family and they kept the dog. I feel like these two stories could also relate because they both have families being split apart. I do believe that not all people included in the fire in Brazil will be able to see their loved ones again, but I sincerely hope that those who are missing be found by their families. Maybe the fire made Brazil realize that their laws need to be pushed and things like this, explosions, building collapses, and trolley mishaps can be avoided. Though the fire in the nightclub was an unforgettable and sad event, it could have been the start of a safer country.