Buenos Aires fire kills 175

A fire tore through a Buenos Aires nightclub packed with young revellers celebrating the New Year holidays, killing at least 175 people as a...

A fire tore through a Buenos Aires nightclub packed with young revellers celebrating the New Year holidays, killing at least 175 people as a stampeding crowd was trapped by locked exit doors.

At least 619 people were injured in the blaze, thought to have been caused by a flare fired into the club’s ceiling during a rock concert, sending burning debris onto the crowd of up to 4,000 people who desperately fought to flee the flames and suffocating smoke.

‘‘The fire spread in a minute and we were a mountain of people trying to escape,’’ said survivor Ariel Monges, 25, who lost a friend and a cousin in the fire and was searching for another friend at a city hospital.

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The blaze, which officials called one of Argentina’s worst disasters, may have claimed more victims because four of the club’s six doors were tied shut with wire, according to Interior Minister Anibal Fernandez. ‘‘It appears they were condemned to walk into a trap,’’ Fernandez said.

Mayor Anibal Ibarra said the emergency exit appeared to be shut ‘‘so that people wouldn’t enter without paying’’ and firefighters had to break it open. Most of the victims died from smoke inhalation. —Reuters