MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentines Demand Justice After Deadly Club Fire

A week after a fire killed nearly 200 people in a Buenos Aires rock club that had locked its emergency exits, mourners held their biggest protest yet as pressure mounted for the mayor to resign.

Some 10.000 people, including angry young rock fans and middle-aged parents, gathered late Thursday outside the club hit by fire on Dec. 30 after a fan shot fireworks into the highly flammable ceiling.

Friends and families of the victims lit candles, waved banners and photographs of the dead, shouting "corruption killed our children as they linked arms in a march to city hall in sweltering summer heat.

A small group clashed with police, who moved in to control the crowd in front of city hall. Several people were arrested and some were injured in the scuffles, local television reported.

The protesters demanded that Mayor Anibal Ibarra resign for failing to enforce safety standards and they want the club owner, Omar Chaban, jailed. He is already under arrest.

A group of teen-age boys, many with tattoos and wearing rock 'n roll T-shirts, jumped up and down screaming insults at Ibarra. One elderly man walked silently looking at the ground and holding up a photograph of a baby.

Several children and babies were among the victims.

"Ibarra, Chaban, we will make you pay for what you did," one young protester spray-painted on a government building.

Ibarra, an ally of Argentine President Nestor Kirchner, has vowed he will not quit.

The death toll rose to 188 from 187 on Thursday after a teen-age boy died from his wounds. Over 700 were injured in the blaze and 237 remain hospitalized.