WEST WARWICK, R.I. -- A nightclub erupted in a raging fire during a rock band's pyrotechnics display late Thursday night, killing at least 96 people and injuring more than 180 others as a frantic mob rushed to escape.
The blaze broke out at The Station in West Warwick at about 11 p.m. EST as the rock group Great White performed in front of about 350 people.
"This is unspeakable," Rhode Island Gov. Don Carcieri said after rushing back to the state from a vacation in Florida. "This shouldn't have happened -- that many people in that building."
Carcieri said authorities will start "two or three" investigations into what seemed to him to be bad decisions. He said capacity at The Station was 300. He also said pyrotechnics never should have been used in the club, and West Warwick Fire Chief Charles Hall later agreed.
The governor said only seven of the 96 victims have been identified. He says identifications of eight other bodies will be completed "fairly quickly."
But Carcieri says it will take dental records or DNA to positively identify other victims because they're so badly burned.
Five teams of forensic pathologists will arrive Saturday.
According to broadcast reports, 187 people have been taken to hospitals across the region with injuries ranging from smoke inhalation to severe burns. Thirty-five are listed in critical condition.
Sparks from pyrotechnics apparently ignited a foam substance behind the stage.
West Warwick Town Manager Wolfgang Bauer said that the club had recently passed a fire inspection but didn't have a permit for pyrotechnics. Club officials say the band did not have permission to use the pyrotechnics, but Great White's lead singer Jack Russell (pictured, right) said the band did have permission.
"We rarely use pyrotechnics. We got permission from the club. I walked on stage. All of a sudden I feel heat. I see that the foam is on fire. All of a sudden the whole place was dark. There were no security lights," Russell said, adding that a guitarist of the band was missing as of Friday afternoon. "This place went up like the Fourth of July."
In a written statement, a lawyer representing the club owners said that permission was not given for the pyrotechnics display.
"At no time did either owner have knowledge that pyrotechnics were going to be used by the band Great White," the statement read. "No permission was ever requested by the band or its agents to use pyrotechnics at The Station, and no permission was ever given."
The owner of a club in Asbury Park, N.J., where Great White played last week, said the band used pyrotechnics without informing club management. He said the band would not have been given permission to use the fireworks, which he says bands use to excite the crowd at the beginning of shows.
Charges against the nightclub owners, former WHDH-TV reporter Jeff Derderian and his brother, would "most definitely" be filed, according to West Warwick Police Department Chief Peter Brousseau.
He said that the club's lack of a pyrotechnics permit was a major factor in the tragedy.
Officials said that concertgoers who could not reach the exits rushed into the building's bathrooms to escape the heat.
"There were people trapped in bathrooms calling on their cell phones and things like that," Bauer said. "There is a good possibility that more bodies will be found. The numbers are staggering, and impact will be staggering."
Firefighters throughout the morning carried bodies to ambulances at the scene. At local hospitals, Kent Hospital treated about 50 patients, and Rhode Island Hospital reported that it treated more than 40 patients. Dr. Selim Suner said the hospital was transferring 10 patients to regional burn centers.
"People were pawing, scratching and punching -- anything that they could do to get out," one witness said.
Ten victims were airlifted to Massachusetts General Hospital. Most were listed in critical condition.
"The physician who accepted the first patients overnight has been with us for six years. She said that these are the worst burns that she has ever seen," Massachusetts General Hospital's Dr. Alasdair Conn said. "You can save patients with major burns, but these are very critical patients -- especially when you have inhalation burns on top of the burned skin. So it is really touch-and-go."
A few Bay State residents searched the hospitals for relatives that attended the concert. Mike Croteau, who was watching the news on television Friday morning, thought he saw his brother in the crowd.
"He was right near the speaker in the front of the stage. They've checked every hospital in Rhode Island, and they can't find him," Croteau said.
Video from the scene showed concertgoers scrambling for safety, trampling others, as fire darted up a wall behind the band. Dozens rushed to the front and became trapped as the crowd tried to squeeze through the exit.
"This building went up fast ... Nobody had a chance," the governor said.
WPRI-TV was inside the club covering the event. News Director Gary Brown said that the station's cameraman was taping the event and stopped rolling to help get people out.
"We got bottlenecked into the front door. People kept pushing. Eventually, everyone popped out of the door, including myself. That's when I went around back. There was no one coming out the back door anymore. I kicked out a side window to try to get people out of there. I went back around the front, and that is when you saw people stacked on top of each other trying to get out of the front door," WPRI cameraman Brian Butler said.
Survivors who escaped the fire searched for friends outside the burning building. Some described the tragedy as a scene out of a TV drama.
"It is like an episode of 'E.R.' I've never seen anything like this before," one survivor said.
"It was calm at first, everyone thought it was part of the act. It happened so fast. The whole ceiling was on fire. I was one of the lucky ones. I got out," witness John DiMeo said.
WHJY-FM spokesman Joe Bevilacua said that a popular local disc jockey, Dr. Metal, was on stage introducing the band.
"We tried to find the Dr., but we don't know where he is," Bevilacua said.
The band Great White is best known for their breakout hit "Once Bitten, Twice Shy," for which they earned a Grammy nomination.
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Statement From Club's Owners
