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text source: www.nytimes.com

Panicked clubgoers crushed each other to death in a popular Russian nightspot as they tried to flee a fast-moving fire that one eyewitness told The Associated Press was started by pyrotechnic fountains set up on the stage.

Officials said 103 people died when the fire tore through the popular Lame Horse nightclub in the city of Perm late Friday, filling the crowded barracks-like building with thick black smoke. News agencies said police quickly arrested the woman who managed the club.

Officials said most of the dead suffered smoke inhalation or were crushed at the exit.

''The fire spread very quickly,'' said Marina Zabbarova, head of the Perm region prosecutor's office. ''Panic arose which led to a mass death of people.''

News footage shot later outside the Lame Horse showed charred bodies lying in rows on the ground amid a light snowfall. Rescue workers carried bodies on stretchers into waiting vans.

Svetlana Kuvshinova, who was in the nightclub when the blaze broke out, told the AP it started after three fireworks fountains spewed sparks, igniting the plastic ceiling. ''The fire took seconds to spread,'' she said. ''It was like a dry haystack. There was only one way out. They nearly stampeded me.''

Another clubgoer said panic spread quickly through the crowd. ''There was only one exit, and people starting breaking down the doors to get out,'' said a woman who identified herself only as Olga, smeared with soot and wearing a filthy fur coat. ''They were breaking the door and panic set in. Everything was in smoke. I couldn't see anything.''

Authorities set about identifying bodies Saturday morning, as ambulances delivered some of the more than 130 injured to planes waiting at the airport, where they were being evacuated to Moscow hospitals. Perm region security officials said 80 of the injured were in critical condition. Firefighters were on the scene one minute after the alarm was called in, the ministry said, and they took less than an hour to put the fire out.