Fatal night out in Caracas
Scores were killed in a stampede after a brawl at the crowded ‘Los Cotorros’ club.
CARACAS: Seventeen people were killed at a crowded nightclub in Venezuela’s capital after a tear gas device exploded during a brawl and triggered a desperate stampede among hundreds gathered for a graduation celebration, government officials said.
Interior Minister Nestor Reverol said the incident at the “Los Cotorros” club in the middle-class neighbourhood of El Paraiso left eight minors dead and five injured. Eight people were detained, including two teens believed responsible for setting off the tear gas canister.
Family members wept and embraced one another after identifying the remains of their loved ones at a nearby hospital.
Outside the club, several mismatched shoes, including a sandal with a puckered red lip decoration, lay on the sidewalk.
“All I know is my son is dead,” Nilson Guerra, 43, told journalists.
More than 500 people were believed to be inside the club when the fight broke out. Julio Cesar Perdomo said his injured son told him the tear gas was launched from inside a bathroom and that partygoers tried to flee but found the club’s door closed.
Pictures posted by Reverol on Twitter show a narrow staircase leading to a metal door.
“The kids couldn’t leave,” Perdomo said.
The club is officially called “El Paraiso” but is more widely known as “Los Cotorros” or “The Chatterboxes”. Photos shared online from previous celebrations at the club show a dark interior with wooden tables and a stage upfront where DJs shuffled songs. Green painted metal bars and gates covered the doors and windows.
Outside, a faded sign on the red brick building read “We’ve opened!”
Jesus Armas, an opposition coun- cilman who lives in the neighbourhood, said the Interior Ministry should explain how a civilian was able to obtain tear gas canisters that should only be utilised by state security forces.
He also urged authorities to investigate whether the club had permission to hold several hundred people inside.
“That’s not a big space and that should not be authorised,” he said.
He added that other violent incidents had taken place inside the club, which is frequently used by the Ecuadorean immigrant community for parties and political events.
Several campaign signs for Ecuadorean politicians were hung outside the building.
Police have detained the owner of the club for “not guaranteeing adequate supervision and preventing the entry of any type of weapon”.
“The establishment has been ordered closed, and we are investigating in coordination with the public ministry, which is directing the criminal investigation,” Reverol said.
Relatives of those inside the club said the party was a celebration for the graduating class of several different high schools.
Some parents had been hesitant to let their children attend.
Haide Berrio, the aunt of a 17-yearold boy killed in the melee, told the media she went running out to find her nephew in the middle of the night after hearing about the commotion at the club and knowing that he was attending the party.
Relatives of the boy found him among the dead and said he died of asphyxia.
Her eyes sunken in grief, she said all the family wants now is for the club to be permanently closed and the owner held responsible.
“I am asking for justice,” she said. Many relatives of victims echoed her call for accountability.
Yoanna Aponte said her 16-yearold cousin died after suffering cranial trauma when she tried to escape and was crushed by the stampede.
“She fell to the ground,” she said between wails, “and all the kids stumbled over her.” — AP