Paraguay: The death toll from a supermarket blaze in Paraguay rose to 423 yesterday, and officials said a guard received orders by radio during the fire to lock the exit doors, apparently to stop people leaving without paying.
The state prosecutor's office, which announced the death toll, said another 139 people were reported missing in Sunday's fire and 451 people were injured.
A judge interrogated the owner of Ycua Bolanos, his son and four guards on whether the doors had been locked immediately after the fire broke out to stop people leaving without paying. He was due to decide later whether to bring murder charges.
Many survivors said the doors were locked, and in one case welded.
A state prosecutor, Mr Edgar Sanchez, said one of the guards had said he received orders to close the doors over radio, but did not know who had given them. The supermarket owner had denied that they ordered the doors closed.
"For the last three days I have been searching for my mother among the bodies," said 29-year-old Mr Carlos Montiel, weeping as he talked.
"We saw corpses stuck to each other. They made us enter a refrigerated lorry where the bodies were in black bags."
Officials say a gas explosion near the food court caused the blaze that swept through the packed supermarket in a working-class neighbourhood on the outskirts of the capital, packed with Sunday shoppers.
Authorities had asked that relatives hand in dental records of their disappeared families to help identification. - (Reuters)