At least 245 people died early Sunday in a fire at a night club in southern Brazil, according to police, amid fears the death toll could rise as scores of injured were being treated in hospital.
Police said they had completed the effort to recover bodies from the Kiss night club in the town of Santa Maria. They were still working at the site to establish the cause of the fire.
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff abruptly cut short her participation in the EU-Latin American summit in Santiago to travel to the state of Rio Grande do Sul, where Santa Maria is located and
which is also Rousseff's home state.
"I wanted to tell the people of our country and of Santa Maria that we are all together at this moment of sadness," she told reporters, with tears in her eyes, at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in
Santiago before she left.
"And we will overcome this, though the sadness will remain," she said.
At least 200 more people were injured in the fire, and 48 of them were admitted to hospital. Most of those killed died of asphyxiation, usual in such fires.
Footage of the night club showed rescue workers making large holes in the wall to aid in extinguishing the fire and rescue survivors.
"I've been with the fire department for 40 years, but I have never seen a tragedy of this magnitude," said fireman Moises da Silva Fuchs.
The fire started at around 2:30 am (0530 GMT). Preliminary information suggested it was sparked by a pyrotechnics display during a concert attended largely by students from a nearby university.
Sparks hit the soundproof foam on the ceiling and caught fire, according to broadcaster Globo. Many people were unable to reach the emergency exits in the ensuing panic.
The building was reportedly in danger of collapsing.
The night club had a capacity for 2,000 people, though it was not immediately clear how many were there at the time of the fire.
Santa Maria is a town of 270,000 about 300 kilometres from Porto Alegre, and home to one of Brazil's largest public universities. Students were holding a party there when the fire broke out.
Rio Grande do Sul's Public Security Minister Airton Michels told the radio station CBN that the fire spread very fast and was "devastating." He noted that, since it was a student party, most of
the dead were young people and teenagers.
The summit between the European Union and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (EU-CELAC) was to close Sunday, and Rousseff had also been set to take part in a CELAC summit on Monday.
In Santiago, she had been due to hold bilateral meetings with the leaders of Argentina, Latvia and Bolivia, before she received news of the fire.