July 20, 2002

LIMA, Peru (Reuters) - A fire sparked by a barman's pyrotechnic stunt ripped though a disco packed with rich young partygoers in the Peruvian capital on Saturday, killing up to 26 people and a lion and tiger at a fatal "zoo party."

Tulio Nicolini, head of Peru's volunteer firefighting force, said the blaze that devastated the Utopia disco appeared to have been sparked by a barman "doing demonstrations with fire and pyrotechnics" that swiftly got out of hand.

He told Reuters an apparent miscalculation by the barman had set the ceiling on fire. That sparked a blaze that choked some 1,000 partygoers with thick black smoke and toxic fumes.

Police earlier said a plume of flames from a fire-eater set the curtains on fire and spread. One witness, Raul Tola, said the blaze may have been started by the staff's trick of dousing ashtrays on the bar with gasoline and setting them aflame.

Although Utopia was located in Lima's premier shopping center, favored by the wealthy elite, neighborhood Mayor Carlos Dargent said it had no building or operating license. Nicolini said it was a "disaster waiting to happen" and the dark club had no signs to emergency exits and no fire extinguishers.

The club had been celebrating its second month anniversary with a "zoo party," including caged lions and a Bengal tiger. Witnesses said a chimpanzee was scampering around the disco and there was also a horse on the premises. Dargent said the tiger and one of the lions died in the inferno.

A spokesman for the local town hall said 26 people were killed, most of them by asphyxiation. At least 50 more were injured and some were hospitalized in critical condition.

Health Minister Fernando Carbone told reporters at the Lima morgue 25 bodies had been received and five more victims -- some unconscious -- were in critical condition in hospital.

One was reported to be brain dead, but Carbone had no details. He said, however, that there were three people being treated in hospital who had not yet been identified.

PAINFUL MEMORIES

Tearful relatives, some clutching photographs of their loved ones, earlier went to the morgue desperate for news.

The scenes were a painful reminder of a devastating blaze in December when than 300 people died after a fireworks store in a poor shopping district of central Lima caught fire.

Peru vowed to stiffen fire safety rules, but Dargent said: "A lot of things have been said but little has been done."

President Alejandro Toledo, who was heading to the stricken southern Andes where a record cold snap has killed 59 people, sent his condolences to the victims' families.

"I know these words cannot heal the pain many families are feeling," he told RPP radio. "I have taken the decision ... to act with a firm hand and the full weight of the law against the irresponsible people who manage these illegal establishments."

Nicolini said the fire started shortly after 3 a.m. local time (4 a.m. EDT) and took an hour to control.

"It turned into a real cavern in there ... Lots of people went into the bathrooms and we rescued some from there in a very precarious condition," he told Reuters.

He said the disco had no water sprinkler system that could have helped douse the flames and some bar staff tried to put out the flames with drinks, only making the blaze worse.

"It was a terrible tragedy that could have been avoided with adequate safety measures," he said.

Moises Gordillo, who escaped the blaze, told RPP radio people thought it was part of the show when the ceiling caught fire. Another witness, who did not give his name, told Canal N cable television "everything happened in a matter of seconds."

"There were too many people inside, you couldn't move," he said, adding some had jumped from the second floor to flee.

Both of Peru's vice presidents were among the people who staked out clinics for news of loved ones caught in the fire.

Nicolini said Peru, a poor Andean nation where more than half the population lives on $1.25 a day or less, appeared to be deaf to fire safety concerns.

Last December's fire -- Peru's worst blaze -- started with an explosion at a shop where fireworks popular at New Year's parties were on sale. The rockets flew off in all directions and a fireball ripped a trail of destruction down the street.

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