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CNN Live Sunday

Fire in Peru Kills at Least 220

Aired December 30, 2001 - 17:12   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Now we move on to South America, where at least 220 people were killed and more than 150 were injured in a fire that swept through a crowded shopping center in Lima, Peru.

The fire chief says that fireworks exploded in a street market setting off a blaze that tore through four blocks of apartments and stores. More now from reporter Helen Wright of Independent Television News.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HELEN WRIGHT, ITN REPORTER (voice-over): It's hard to believe that this was one of the Peruvian capital's busiest shopping streets. Its stores, market stalls and homes reduced to charred rubble, following a fire which raged for just a few hours.

And this was thought to be the cause: Fireworks on sale for New Year's celebrations. Witnesses claim a shopkeeper demonstrating a firecracker for a customer ignited this ferocious blaze. Four hundred firefighters were drafted in to battle the flames, volunteers rushed to help them drag water hoses through the narrow streets.

Amid the intense heat, this man held a torch to give the crews some little light to work by. Dazed survivors were carried away from the burning building where over 200 men, women and children died. Among them, shopkeepers who had locked themselves inside their stores in fear of looters.

Surveying the devastation today, Peru's president promised financial help for victims of the fire, and a ban on the production and import of fireworks. Later president Toledo met some of the people injured in the blaze as his country observes two days of mourning for those who did not survive.

Helen Wright, ITN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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