Paraguay mourns 300 dead in market blaze

Paraguay on Monday mourned the deaths of nearly 300 people in a fire in a busy supermarket and struggled to find answers to the impoverished nation's worst tragedy in decades.
Investigators will be probing reports that Sunday shoppers were trapped inside after the supermarket locked its doors to stop people from looting.
"There are several witnesses who saw how they shut the doors to the supermarket and we also confirmed that the emergency exit was soldered," Paraguay's police chief Humberto Nunez told Reuters.
Three owners of the Ycua Bolanos supermarket and three security guards are in police custody, but denied that the doors had been locked.
The fire swept through the busy supermarket on the outskirts of the capital Asuncion at midday on Sunday when it was packed with shoppers. Officials said the blaze was caused by a gas explosion near the food court.
Flames engulfed a parking lot underneath and several charred corpses were found in their burnt cars.
"Up to now we have a total of 276 dead, 131 have been identified and handed over to their families and 145 are pending identification," Nunez said.
Rescue workers were still searching for bodies inside and many of the injured were in critical condition, he added.
Paraguay, a country of 6 million, called the fire its worst tragedy since a 1930s war with neighbouring Bolivia that killed thousands.
The government declared Monday a day of national mourning and suspended all official activities and classes.
The magnitude of the fire stretched the public services of one of South America's poorest and most corrupt countries. Hospitals were overwhelmed by the hundreds of injured suffering from burns and lung damage.
Families went to a makeshift morgue in a sports club on the outskirts of the city in a desperate search for relatives who had been at the popular supermarket.
President Nicanor Duarte Frutos said on television late Sunday that he would push for a rapid investigation into the causes of the tragedy "so that those responsible are punished with the full force of the law."