Brazil was Monday mourning the 233 victims of a fire that swept through a nightclub in the southern town of Santa Maria.
Most of the victims were aged between 18 and 23 years, according to a list of the identified bodies that was made public. Many minors were also killed and at least 217 were injured.
About 90 per cent of the victims at the popular Kiss nightclub died of asphyxiation, firefighters said.
The victims' families queued outside a sports centre to identify their loved ones from the bodies that were laid out in a row with plastic sheets covering all but their faces.
The fire started at about 2:30 am (0530 GMT) Sunday. Preliminary information indicated that 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.
"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 nightclub had a capacity for 2,000 people.
Firefighters needed to make holes in the walls attempting to rescue possible survivors. When they finally managed to enter, they saw a pile of bodies.
Health Minister Alexandre Padilha said that 91 people remained in hospital Monday.
President Dilma Rousseff abruptly cut short her participation in the EU-Latin American summit in Santiago to travel Sunday to the state of Rio Grande do Sul, where Santa Maria is located and which is also her 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 said with tears in her eyes. "And we will overcome this, though the sadness will remain."
Later, the president visited relatives of the dead at the sports centre, which was functioning as a morgue, and also some of the injured in hospital.
Santa Maria is a town of 270,000, about 300 kilometres from Porto Alegre, and home to one of Brazil's largest public universities.
In 1961, 503 people died when a circus tent caught fire in Niteroi, in the state of Rio de Janeiro.