MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Buenos Aires club fire first political victim.

The nightclub trap fire that killed more than 180 people in Argentina last week reached the political system with the resignation of Buenos Aires City Justice and Urban Secretary Juan Carlos Lopez.

Mr. Lopez submitted his resignation hours after Mayor Anibal Ibarra called Saturday night on "all sectors" to take responsibility for the fire.

Meanwhile the exact death toll from the fire has become controversial: Buenos Aires city officials insist with 182 dead, but police forces talk of 188, with 150 of the more than 700 injured still hospitalized, 57 of them in intensive care.

Mr. Lopez told a local radio that he resigned because he had failed as head of the agency responsible for regulating the city's commercial establishments. "When there is a tragedy of this type, someone has to take responsibility and step aside" admitted Mr. Lopez.

Most of those killed in the fire were teenagers or young adults trampled to death or suffocated by smoke, including several pre-teen children and even infants.

City authorities said emergency exits of the Cromagnon Republic club, in the capital's Once working class neighbourhood had been sealed with wire and chains, thus preventing stampeding concert-goers from escaping after a flare shot by an audience member sparked the fire late Thursday night last week.

More than 5,000 people were packed into the 1,500-square-meter (16,000-square-foot) club for a concert by the rock band Callejeros. The flare, which struck and ignited fabric draped over the stage, was fired shortly after the band struck up its first number.

Last Friday, police arrested Omar Chaban, the club's owner who could face a sentence of twenty years if convicted. Police officials said that among other irregularities the concert was organized in spite of having the fire-safety certificate expired.

However the Argentine press revealed that over 85% of discos, concert arenas and other night entertainment places in Buenos Aires have never been inspected by the city's safety and security Department officials.

Furthermore relatives from the club's victims marched downtown Buenos Aires demanding the resignation of Mayor Anibal Ibarra, a close political ally of President Nestor Kirchner.