Churches Respond to Paraguayan Fire Disaster

Paraguayan churches provide immediate assistance to the hundreds injured by the gas tank explosion that left 464 dead and 130 missing

By Kenneth Chan
Thursday, August 05, 2004

Paraguayan churches have swung into action to assist families of those who were killed in the blaze that swept through a shopping center in Paraguay Sunday leaving 464 dead, 130 still missing, and another 454 hospitalized as of August 3. According to Public Health Minister Julio Cesar Velazquez, of those hospitalized after the fire, 230 were still being treated Wednesday.

A child is helped out of the Ycua Bolanos supermarket in Asuncion, Paraguay on Sunday, Aug. 1, 2004. The fire broke out at the Ycua Bolanos supermarket while it was crowded with Sunday midday shoppers. (Photo: AP / Jorge Saenz)

The blaze that swept through the Ycua Bolanos market on Sunday, August 1, in Santisima Trinidad, a working-class suburb of the capital, Asuncion, began when a gas tank exploded near a food court. Compounding casualties in the packed store was a reported order from store management to lock the building

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