60 killed in fire at disco

GOTEBORG, Sweden, Oct 30 (AP) — A fire started by an explosion raced through an upstairs discotheque jammed with hundreds of teenagers attending a Halloween dance early today in Sweden’s second largest city, killing at least 60 persons and injuring about 190 others, many of them seriously.

"It reminded me of the gas chambers at Auschwitz," local rescue service leader Lennart Olin said on national radio, describing the sight when rescuers first entered the building in Goteborg on the country’s west coast and about 500 km southwest of Stockholm.

The fire was the deadliest in modern Swedish history since 1978, when 20 persons died in the town of Boraas.

"We are still searching the building... but so far we have found 60 dead," Goteborg police official Jan Edmundson said on national radio.

The cause of the fire was not immediately known. "What we know is that there was an explosion," Mr Edmundson said.

Mr Olin said there were signs the fire was set. "The fact that it spread so fast indicates that it was not a normal fire,’’ he said. The Swedish news agency, TT reported 190 persons were taken to hospitals with injuries, and about 20 were in intensive care. Seven of the most severely injured were taken by helicopter to burn clinics in other cities, the report said.

The fire broke out about midnight (4.30 a m IST) in building of the local Macedonian Association, which organised the dance. The crowd in the second storey of the building contained mostly 13 to 18 year olds.

Jamal Fawz (15) told TT he was out on the dance floor when the blaze started with about 400 persons inside.

"It looked like it started in the ceiling, and lamps and loudspeakers fell to the floor," he was quoted as saying. "It was chaos. Everybody was trying to get out and people trampled on each other on the way to the exit.... others kicked out the windows and jumped out,’’ he added.

Ambulances were called in from several nearby communities. The Goteborg rescue services also brought city buses into service to help transport the injured.

Mr Olin said the rescue service inspected the building in April 1997 and fulfilled all possible demands, including emergency exits and the possibility for fast evacuation.

Mr Anna-Lisa Saar, social worker at Oestra Hospital, where many of the victims were taken, said identifying many of them was difficult.

"Maybe you have teenagers yourself and know how they are... they maybe don’t have their own identification, but have that of a friend who is a year older. Girls don’t carry their identification on them, but in a bag and maybe that wasn’t lying with the body," she said, according to TT.