Horror in Brazilian Night Club Fire
DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone, I'm Don Lemon. Let's start with your headlines at this hour. A nightclub suddenly catches fire in Brazil and a staggering number of people are dead tonight. This is a club in daytime. Witnesses say it was packed with people during a pyrotechnics show and at least 233 people died when they couldn't get out. Stay right there, CNN crew is on the scene, a full report in just a minute. Attention credit card shoppers. A brand new credit card fee kicked in on Sunday, stores in 40 states can now charge you a checkout fee worth up to three percent of your total purchase. This stems from a legal settlement that allows stores to pass along processing fees charged by credit card companies, many retailers strongly oppose a credit card fee, you can avoid the fee using your debit it card instead or paying cash. Chuck Hagel got the nod today to be the next secretary of defense. Retired army general Stanley McChrystal and former CIA director and retired air force General Michael Hayden. Both say Hagel is a fine choice. Hagel earned two purple hearts in the Vietnam War. His confirmation hearing is set to begin Thursday. Japan has launched two surveillance satellites to help keep an eye on North Korea. Defense officials are threatening to carry out a nuclear test and more long range rocket launches. The U.S. Security Council expanded sanctions against North Korea this week and condemned the country for last month's launch. It is a sickening number, 233 people killed in a nightclub fire in southeast Brazil. Some burned to death, some were trampled, some overcome by smoke. It happened when the jam packed nightclub suddenly caught fire and many of these victims didn't stand a chance. On the scene right now, where rescuers are still picking through the burned rubble, is CNN's Shasta Darlington.</s>SHASTA DARLINGTON, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Smoke filled the air when the first firefighters entered the nightclub where shirtless men were already trying to rescue some of the injured. Emergency vehicles arrived not realizing the extent of the tragedy they faced. Chaos and terror among survivors and the bodies of victims all around. The fire broke out at about 2:00 in the morning at a nightclub called Kiss in Santa Maria in Brazil's southernmost state. The club was packed with some 2,000 people, twice its legal capacity according to officials.</s>GUIDO DE MELO, STATE FIRE OFFICIAL (through translator): People who were inside the facility, informed us that when they came out, that security guards blocked the exit to prevent people from leaving, and that's when the crowd started panicking, and the tragedy grew worse.</s>DARLINGTON: People inside told us when they came out, security guards blocked exits to prevent people from leaving, he says. That's when the crowds started panicking. This is Santa Maria's local gymnasium. But, it's been turned into a makeshift morgue. There are more than 100 bodies here, hundreds of families have come together trying to locate and identify the relatives who were, of course, young people in their late teens, early 20s, they died of asphyxiation and some of them were trampled to death. As the confidence for the many victims were lined up, investigators searched for the cause of the fire, which tore through the sound proofing insulation in the roof. Brazilian president, Dilma Rousseff cut short her appearance at a summit in Chile and headed to Santa Maria to personally oversee the government's response to the tragedy.</s>DILMA ROUSSEFF, PRESIDENT OF BRAZIL (through translator): To the Brazilian people, and the people of Santa Maria, we stand together at this time. And that even though there's a lot of sadness we will pull through.</s>DARLINGTON: By daylight, hospitals in Santa Maria were full of people looking for relatives among the survivors.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): There are a lot of people scattered around the hospital's different departments as well as in the intensive care units who have not been identified yet. It isn't a big number, that the people waiting outside for news are desperate.</s>DARLINGTON: It was the end of the summer holiday season in Brazil, the last chance to party for many young people due back at school or work on Monday. Shasta Darlington, CNN. Santa Maria, Brazil.</s>LEMON: You may remember, we had a similar tragedy here in the U.S. A fire started at an overcrowded nightclub in Rhode Island and 100 died. And if you can believe it, that was 10 years ago. Our Susan Candiotti has been looking back at some of that awful nightclub fires in recent American history.</s>SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: In 2003, 100 people died at the station nightclub in West Warwick, Rhode Island, where the band Great White was performing. Pyrotechnics ignited soundproofing material. Smoke filled the room. In 1990, arson was the cause of the Happy Land fire in New York. It killed 87 people. Authorities said the Bronx Club was operating illegally. Two years after it was ordered closed because of safety violations. In 1977, fire at the Beverly Hills Supper Club in Southgate, Kentucky, killed 165 people. Among 2,400 waiting for entertainer John Davidson to perform, which believed to be an electrical fire went undetected at first. There were no fire detectors or sprinklers. At the time, they weren't required. The deadliest nightclub blaze happened in 1942 at the Cocoanut Grove club in Boston. Four hundred ninety two people were killed. The cause of the blaze, to this day, remains unknown.</s>LEMON: CNN's Susan Candiotti reporting tonight. Very cold weather is expected this week in the United States. We will head to the middle of the country for that. And then, across the world, this desperate attempt to rescue two women and a baby trapped in dangerous floodwaters. That's up next.