Some managers really ARE jerks...

[Dark Jaguar]

http://www.thisislondon.com/news/article...20Standard

340 killed in inferno
By Chris Millar, Evening Standard
2 August 2004
Hundreds of people were left to die inside a blazing supermarket after security staff locked doors to prevent customers from running out without paying, it emerged today.

Initial reports suggested as many as 340 people were killed when the fire tore through a large shopping centre in the Paraguayan capital of Asuncion after an industrial propane tank exploded.

Police have charged the store's owner Juan Pio Paiva and his son Daniel with homicide after they allegedly ordered security personnel to lock down every exit. Firefighters had to batter down the locked main entrance to the complex before they could reach hundreds of trapped shoppers.

Continued in article...

Sounds like a much tougher affair to escape than just "breaking a window" (keep in mind movies are STILL horribly unrealistic regarding ALL physics, especially window smashing and it's ease and danger)...

Anyway, this guy deserves to be fired... out of a cannon into the sun. Seriously, what kind of IDIOT puts store profits over even ONE human's life? So some people are going to steal some things, big deal! This isn't even the point but even someone as heartless as him should have figured that he was going to loose a LOT of money ANYWAY due to the place burning down. So, he's evil AND stupid. Then again, he IS just some middle-aged department store manager, a sign he wasn't smart enough or determined enough to ever actually do anything with his life (that couldn't be done by a machine). Still, it should be clear he was fully aware of the danger, because he frickin' SURVIVED! I bet he made sure to be OUT of the store before the doors were all locked... And to the employees who carried out these orders, honestly, minimum wage is NOT worth obeying a crazy selfish fool! Punch the guy in his crusty face and jam a door OPEN! Horrible disaster means IGNORE YOUR BOSS!

So, this is open to differing opinions, so go ahead and explain why this guy deserves to die in YOUR opinion :D.

[A Black Falcon]

460 dead, 400 injured by the last report I heard. And it's just a horrible, horrible tragedy... it was several days ago, though. Took a while for you to notice it?

[Great Rumbler]

I'm glad I don't work for that guy.

[Dark Jaguar]

Hey, I don't go perusing news archives all the time, so no it didn't take a while for me to NOTICE it. It took me a few days to FIND OUT about it. Besides, I hardly thought it happened JUST when I had heard about it.

Remember one thing about the numbers. They are likely to drop. The reason is a lot of the time the same people are counted multiple times in the confusion. (Remember the ridiculously high numbers of people that supposedly died after 9/11? Sure it was STILL a tragically high number when all was said and done, but not nearly 500,000 or so...) I bet it'll still be high though, likely still in the hundreds.

[A Black Falcon]

It was in the local paper the day before yesterday and happened three days ago, DJ. I saw it in the news on the CNN site first I think... I spend a lot of time at the CNN and New York Times websites. :)

And I think that's the number of bodies... it will drop some, yes, but it'll be in the hundreds for sure. Over 300, most probably.

[Dark Jaguar]

360 was the first reported number, I think that number too is a result of accidental recounting (which is understandable mind you). Like you though, I think it'll be in the hundreds still...

As far as news sites, no, I don't spend a lot of time at them. "It happened 3 days ago" means nothing to me. Should I know it if it happened then? That's still VERY recent to me. In fact, there are a LOT of events like this that I generally don't even look into. I'll look into the major stuff, and then sometimes, maybe once a month or so, I'll notice some particularly interesting "human tragedy" headline. This was one of those times. Now, ask me about recent scientific breakthroughs, I'm generally all over that. That's the stuff I read daily :D. (And no, NOT from CNN! Oh <insert diety here> no! They go over the most sensational part (and if that doen't exist, they'll take something out of context) and a lot of the time, they don't even bother providing a decent source. So, isntead I spend time at places like nasa.gov and such, to get the full story. Remember, in science there is NOT "two sides to every debate", there is the observed evidence and the people who are flat out wrong. Politics is where two intelligent people with good logic and correct facts can fall on two sides of an issue, not science.

[EdenMaster]

What the hell? This is the first I've heard of it. It's so appalling it's hard to believe. Was the few bucks he saved worth it? Besides, if I'm ever in a burning building, grabbing stuff off of the shelves is probably not going to be my primary concern.

[A Black Falcon]

No one here reads the news, do they... as I said, it's been in the news for almost three days now...

As for casualties, it was first, I think, 330. Then 360, then 460... and it was earlier '600 or 700 people were in the store' then it was 900 and there were 400 injured in addition to the 460 dead... early reports had 330 dead and 100 injured (fifteen critically).

I know I read the news more than most people. But when I load my browser up when I turn on my PC, TC is my homepage. I then open another tab and open CNN. Then generally the New York Times, sometime later. When I want in-depth articles about the news and not just tidbits like CNN has. Well, not quite tidbits, but not as much detail. And they have an awful, awful tendency to, about halfway into articles, start repeating things from previous articles about the subject and spend the rest of the article doing that... so annoying...

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/americas/0...index.html

This latest article says 409 dead, 454 injured, ~130 missing...

[EdenMaster]

I watch the local news and occassionally the world news. When I go online I go to TendoCity, Bob and George, GameFAQs, and Google for anything else I may be looking for. Otherwise, I briefly skim the front page of the newspaper. If the news is that important, I'll hear about it sooner or later, I figure.

[Great Rumbler]

I don't read the news too often, but I do watch FNC so I knew that this had occured. The only online site that I get national/world news from is Fark.

[A Black Falcon]

... I read Fark too, but maybe only once or twice a day... :)

As for the paper, when I'm at home I read it. Not every article, but I generally look over each page, except on sundays... and we get several papers. The New York Times is by far the best paper for news in the country that I've read, by the way... I'm very happy we get it.

[Dark Jaguar]

The newspaper is outmodded. There is no point in it's existance any more. Every single thing a newspaper ever offered can be obtained on a computer, including portability, and it's a lot easier to manage.

Honestly ABF, are you that surprised we didn't hear about this? I mean, I check out the news fairly regularly, but not every single day (you consider checking a site only twice a day to be LOW?), maybe a big burst of news once a week, and no, not EVERY single article. Just the important stuff. If it wasn't for my occasional need to read a story like this about a complete jerk, I wouldn't ever read about stuff like this.

[A Black Falcon]

No, I'm not surprised. Most people don't really read the news. It's just always something I've been interested in, so I had to say that it was an event that happened several days ago and I've probably read four or five articles about it. :)

[Undertow]

Was the few bucks he saved worth it?

Save money? More like 'if you're going to run out with my goods, I'm going to let you burn with it'. I guess that little bit of logic never reached his brain- but I doubt much does.

[Dark Jaguar]

He didn't save ANY money! Remember, these people all died! Now, it doesn't say if they burned to death, or were overheated, or they died of smoke inhalation (the latter being the usual means of death), but I'm certain that all the products anyone might have carried out of the store were destroyed anyway. Thus, he likely didn't save ANY money at all!

[A Black Falcon]

And he'll probably go to prison for a long time as a result, too, so he did more than not save money... though no punishment can be a replacement for all those lives...

Anyway, here's the latest. NY Times.

6 Are Charged With Murder After Paraguay Store Fire
By TODD BENSON

Published: August 4, 2004

SÃO PAULO, Brazil, Aug. 3 - Prosecutors in Paraguay filed murder charges on Tuesday against the owners and security guards of a megastore in Asunción where as many as 460 people were killed and hundreds more were injured in a fire over the weekend.

In all, six people were charged with criminal homicide, including Juan Pío Paiva, the store owner; his son, Víctor Daniel; and four security guards who were on duty when the fire broke out on Sunday at the Ycuá Bolaños store on the outskirts of Asunción, the capital. If convicted, they could face up to 25 years in prison.

A store manager, Fernando Humberto Casaccia, was also charged with criminal negligence for allegedly refusing to help people escape from the burning building. Mr. Casaccia faces up to two years in prison if he is found guilty.

The police raised the official death toll on Tuesday to 371, and said it would probably increase again. The attorney general's office, however, estimates that as many as 460 people were killed in the fire. At least 400 more were injured in the blaze, which Paraguayan authorities have called the country's worst disaster in decades.

The police now estimate that close to 1,000 people were in the giant store when the fire broke out. There are three other Ycuá Bolaños shopping complexes in Asunción, all of which draw thousands of shoppers on weekends.

"The fire couldn't have happened in a worse place and at a worse time," said Santiago Velazco, a spokesman for the Paraguayan National Police. "These megastores are always packed on Sundays. That's when everyone does their shopping."

Hundreds of shoppers and employees were trapped in the three-story shopping complex after security guards apparently locked the emergency exits after the fire started. Prosecutors believe the store's managers ordered the guards to block the exits to stop people from stealing merchandise in the chaos.

"One of the guards has already confessed that he was given orders by radio to lock the doors," Edgar Sánchez, the prosecutor handling the investigation, said by telephone from Asunción. "That means that someone is criminally responsible for the death of those people."

Mr. Paiva has denied that the doors were locked deliberately.

Although authorities are still investigating, firefighters suspect the fire was started by a gas leak that caused two explosions in the building's food court, which was packed with families having lunch. The flames quickly spread through the rest of the shopping complex, which also housed offices and an underground parking garage. The heat of the blaze caused the first floor to collapse, crushing people in parked cars in the garage.

Rescue workers were still uncovering bodies on Tuesday. The police said that about 90 victims had not been identified and that dozens more were still missing. Television images showed several people frantically searching for family members among the dead.

The disaster has aroused a national outcry in Paraguay, a poor nation of about six million people that borders Argentina, Bolivia and Brazil. President Nicanor Duarte Frutos, who visited the scene on Sunday, declared three days of national mourning. Stores in Ciudad del Leste, the country's second largest city, closed on Tuesday for an hour to honor the dead, dozens of whom were children.

[Great Rumbler]

A store manager, Fernando Humberto Casaccia, was also charged with criminal negligence for allegedly refusing to help people escape from the burning building.

Wow. That guy deserves more than two years.

[A Black Falcon]

Definitely...

[Dark Jaguar]

Now it might seem the numbers are more accurate... This is apparently more than the Wal-Mart type store I was picturing, though not quite a mall. "Megastore" just isn't something I hear too often except as a name attached to large Targets and Wal-Marts.

Wait, did they mention the food court? *weird chime sound* oO(that's it!)

*Sneaks off to some corner and uses dart watch in nearby detective's neck, then readies voice modulator*

[Dark Jaguar]

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/08/0...click=true

One of the guards even shot at a firefighter who sought to break down the doors, according to fire brigade Commander Oscar Ojeda.

[A Black Falcon]

It's a three story store with an underground parking garage, DJ. Included a supermarket, food court, some other stores, and some offices...

[Weltall]

And people say Wal-Mart is evil!

[Great Rumbler]

One of the guards even shot at a firefighter who sought to break down the doors, according to fire brigade Commander Oscar Ojeda.

That's messed up.