Panicked clubgoers crushed each other to death in a popular Russian nightspot as they tried to flee a fast-moving fire that one eyewitness said was started by pyrotechnic fountains set up on the stage.
Officials said 103 people died when the fire tore through the Lame Horse nightclub in the city of Perm late on Friday, filling the crowded barracks-like building with thick black smoke.
Authorities said they arrested the registered owner of the club and the manager.
Officials said most of the dead suffered smoke inhalation or were crushed at the exit.
“The fire spread very quickly,” said Marina Zabbarova, chief investigator for the local prosecutor’s office. “Panic arose which led to a mass death of people.”
News footage shot later outside the Lame Horse showed charred bodies lying in rows on the ground amid a light snowfall. Rescue workers carried bodies on stretchers into waiting vans.
Svetlana Kuvshinova, who was in the nightclub when the blaze broke out, said it started after three fireworks fountains spewed sparks, igniting the plastic ceiling.
“The fire took seconds to spread,” she said. “It was like a dry haystack. There was only one way out. They nearly stampeded me.”
Another clubgoer said panic spread quickly through the crowd.
“There was only one exit, and people starting breaking down the doors to get out,” said a woman who identified herself only as Olga, smeared with soot and wearing a filthy fur coat. “They were breaking the door and panic set in. Everything was in smoke. I couldn’t see anything.”
Authorities set about identifying bodies on Saturday morning as ambulances delivered some of the more than 130 injured to planes waiting at the airport, where they were being evacuated to Moscow hospitals.
Perm region security officials said 80 of the injured were in critical condition.
The state-run Vesti news channel reported that the blaze started when a performer juggling fireworks accidentally set the plastic suspended ceiling on fire. But by late morning there was no official confirmation of this account, which was contradicted by some witnesses.
Vladimir Markin, a spokesman for Russia’s top investigative body, said that there was no suspicion of a terrorist attack.
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