Story highlights Cell phones left in the club ring, go unanswered amid the ruins 
 
 The club's license had expired in August and had not been renewed 
 
 At least 80 of those killed were students at the Federal University of Santa Maria 
 
 Workers combing through the charred wreckage of Kiss nightclub in southern Brazil on Sunday encountered the eerie sound of ringing cell phones. 
 
 "It was a really complicated scene. A lot of smoke, a lot of shoes that was left, cell phones, because everybody tried to get out of there running," he said. "While we were there, we saw the cell phones were ringing. It was parents, friends, trying to know about what was happening and nobody was answering." 
 
 A fire swept through the packed, popular nightclub in Santa Maria early Sunday, killing at least 233 people -- enough to fill a large plane -- Brazilian Health Minister Alexandro Padilha told reporters. Of those, 185 have been identified so far. 
 
 Many apparently died from smoke inhalation. Others were trampled in the rush for the exits, one security guard told Band News. 
 
 More than 90 people were hospitalized, Padilha said, including 14 patients with severe burns. 
 
 Map: Brazil nightclub fire 
 
 About 2,000 people were inside the club when the fire broke out -- double the maximum capacity of 1,000, said Guido de Melo, a state fire official. 
 
 Investigators have received preliminary information that security guards stopped people from exiting the club, he told Globo TV. 
 
 "People who were inside the facility informed us ... that security guards blocked the exit to prevent people there from leaving, and that's when the crowd starting panicking, and the tragedy grew worse," he said. 
 
 The fire started "from out of nowhere" on a stage at the club and quickly spread to the ceiling, witness Jairo Vieira told Band News. 
 
 "People started running," survivor Luana Santos Silva told Globo TV. "I fell on the floor." 
 
 There was a pyrotechnics show going on inside the club when the fire started. Authorities stopped short of blaming it for the blaze, saying the cause was still under investigation. 
 
 The Kiss nightclub is popular with young people in Santa Maria, which is home to a number of universities and colleges, including the Federal University of Santa Maria. At least 80 of those killed Sunday were students at that school, it said. 
 
 JUST WATCHED Hundreds dead in Brazil nightclub fire Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Hundreds dead in Brazil nightclub fire 02:10 
 
 JUST WATCHED Chaos in Brazilian city after fire Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Chaos in Brazilian city after fire 04:18 
 
 JUST WATCHED Deadly fire sweeps through Brazil club Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Deadly fire sweeps through Brazil club 03:00 
 
 JUST WATCHED Deadly nightclub fire in Brazil Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Deadly nightclub fire in Brazil 03:52 
 
 JUST WATCHED Brazilian reporter: People were running Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Brazilian reporter: People were running 01:08 
 
 The blaze broke out during a weekend when students were celebrating the end of summer. Many universities are set to resume classes on Monday. 
 
 Video from the scene showed firefighters shooting streams of water at the club and shirtless men trying to break down a wall with axes. 
 
 Smoke billowed outside the front of the building as the stench of fire filled the air, said Max Muller, who was riding by on his motorbike when he saw the blaze. 
 
 Muller recorded video of a chaotic scene outside the club, which showed emergency crews tending to victims and dazed clubgoers standing in the street. Bodies lay on the ground beside ambulances. 
 
 Friends who were inside the club told him that many struggled to find the exits in the dark. Muller, who was not inside the club Sunday morning but has been there twice before, said there were no exit signs over the doors. It is rare to see such signs in Brazilian clubs. 
 
 Valderci Oliveira, a state lawmaker, told Band News that he saw piles of bodies in the club's bathroom when he arrived at the scene hours after the blaze. It looked "like a war zone," he said. 
 
 Police told Band News that 90% of the victims were found in that part of the club. 
 
 The roof collapsed in several parts of the building, trapping many inside, said Fernandes, the reporter from Band News. 
 
 For others, escaping was complicated by the fact that guards initially stopped people from leaving, he said, echoing comments from the state fire official. 
 
 "Some guards thought at first that it was a fight, a huge fight that happened inside the club and closed the doors so that the people could not leave without paying their bills from the club," Fernandes said. 
 
 The deadly fire is sure to shine a spotlight on safety in Brazil, which is set to host the World Cup next year and the Olympics in 2016. 
 
 Many wept as they searched for information outside a local gymnasium where bodies were taken for identification later Sunday. Inside, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff met with family members and friends as they waited on bleachers for word of their loved ones. 
 
 Rousseff became teary-eyed as she spoke of the fire to reporters in Chile earlier Sunday. She had been attending a regional summit there, but cut short the trip and returned to Brazil early to deal with the aftermath of the tragedy. 
 
 "The Brazilian people are the ones who need me today," she said. "I want to tell the people of Santa Maria in this time of sadness that we are all together." 
 
 The fire started around 2 a.m. after the acoustic insulation in the Kiss nightclub caught fire, said Civil Defense Col. Adilomar Silva. 
 
 An accordionist who had been performing onstage with a band when the blaze broke out was among the dead, drummer Eliel de Lima told Globo TV. 
 
 Police were questioning the club's owner and interviewing witnesses as part of an investigation into what caused the blaze, state-run Agencia Brasil reported. 
 
 The club's license had expired in August and had not been renewed, local fire official Moises da Silva Fuchs told Globo TV. 
 
 The incident called to mind a 2003 nightclub fire in Rhode Island where pyrotechnics used by the heavy metal band Great White ignited a blaze that killed 100 people. 
 
 Pyrotechnics were also involved in a 2004 nightclub fire in Argentina that killed 194 people and a 2009 explosion at a nightclub in Russia that left more than 100 dead. ||||| At least 232 people have been killed in a Brazilian nightclub fire sparked by what witnesses described as a flare or firework lit by members of a band performing onstage. 
 
 Many of the victims died inhaling toxic fumes during the rush to escape through the venue's single exit, according to local media reports in the southern city of Santa Maria. 
 
 Police Major Cleberson Braida Bastianello said officials counted 232 bodies brought for identification to a makeshift mortuary at the city gymnasium. He lowered the death toll from the 245 earlier believed killed. 
 
 Television images showed smoke pouring out of the Kiss nightclub as shirtless, young male partygoers joined firefighters in wielding axes and sledgehammers, pounding at windows and walls to break through to those trapped inside. Teenagers sprinted from the scene desperately trying to find help others carried injured and burned friends away in their arms. 
 
 "There was so much smoke and fire, it was complete panic and it took a long time for people to get out, there were so many dead," survivor Luana Santos Silva told the Globo TV network. 
 
 Silva added that firefighters and ambulances responded quickly after the fire broke out, but that it spread too fast inside the packed club for them to help. 
 
 Michele Pereira, another survivor, told the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper that she was near the stage and that the fire broke out after band members lit flares. 
 
 "The band that was onstage began to use flares and, suddenly, they stopped the show and pointed them upward. At that point the ceiling caught fire. It was really weak but in a matter of seconds it spread," Pereira said. 
 
 After the fire was extinguished, bodies were ferried by truck to the gymnasium. The Globo newspaper said the first truck carried 67 bodies and the second 70. 
 
 "People started panicking and ended up treading on each other," a fire chief, Guido de Melo, told local media. 
 
 Fire department officials will issue a detailed report after a full investigation. 
 
 Many of the dead are likely to be students because Santa Maria is a university centre for the Rio Grande do Sul region and the usual class schedule had been disrupted by strikes.
– A fireworks display in a Brazilian nightclub went horribly awry last night, spawning a fire that police say killed upward of 233 people, reports CNN. Police on the scene at the Kiss nightclub in Santa Maria have already removed 159 bodies, reports Reuters, and rescuers are still looking for more. "People started panicking and ended up treading on each other," the local fire chief tells the BBC, which notes that there was apparently only one exit in the facility. The number of injured is also in the hundreds; local media report that the club had a capacity of 2,000 and was believed to be full on a Saturday night. "It was really fast. There was a lot of smoke, really dark smoke," says survivor Aline Santos Silva, 29. "We were only able to get out quickly because we were in a VIP area close to the door." The AP runs down a list of other deadly nightclub fires here.