A fire swept through a busy supermarket on the Paraguayan capital's outskirts on Sunday and killed at least 142 people, police said. Dozens more were injured in an inferno that firefighters said was probably caused by the accidental explosion of gas canisters in the supermarket. "They are still taking bodies out of the supermarket," Paraguay's police chief, Humberto Nunez, told Reuters. In chaotic scenes, rescuers carried lifeless bodies, some black from burns and smoke, out of the supermarket in their arms. Firefighters took calcified body remains out of the supermarket on stretchers. Survivors were thrown on the back of open trucks that were driven to hospitals. Others were burned alive in their cars as the blaze swept though a parking lot underneath the supermarket, local television reported. A local discotheque opposite the supermarket was being used as a makeshift morgue. --MORE "It is a moment of huge grief and tension, and we are here to give a voice of support to people who are suffering so much," said President Nicanor Duarte Frutos, who rushed with his wife to the scene of the blaze. Dozens of ambulances and fire engines gathered outside the large Ycua Bolanos supermarket, located in a working-class district, where residents of all economic classes do their Sunday shopping. Plumes of black smoke rose from its roof. The disaster appeared to have stretched the emergency services of this landlocked country, one of South America's poorest nations. Local television showed firefighters trying to plug holes in leaking water hoses with the soles of their boots. Local media called on citizens to donate basic supplies, like gloves, to hospitals. Private hospitals opened up their doors to victims of the blaze, but were short of respirators.
