Death Toll in Dutch Cafe Fire Expected to Rise

At least eight people were killed and more than 180 injured when fire swept through a cafe packed with teenagers celebrating the new year in this Dutch tourist town, officials said Monday.

Police said the toll was expected to rise as those burned in the harbor-side Het Hemeltje cafe--whose name translates as Small Heaven--die of their injuries.

Mayor Frank Ijsselmuiden told a news conference that the official death toll was eight. Seven men and a woman, all local residents between the ages of 17 and 22, perished in the fire, which swept through the third story of the timbered building in this picturesque town just north of Amsterdam, officials said.

Police and emergency workers listed about 180 people as injured, and 90 of them remained hospitalized, the mayor told reporters. Asked how high the death toll might rise, he said, “I dare not guess.” Health officials predicted the number could reach 20.

Fifteen of the injured were said to be clinging to life, and some were sent to burn units in Belgium and Germany.

It was unclear what caused the fire, which broke out about 12:30 a.m. Monday as hundreds of people partied. Many of the victims were injured as they smashed windows and leaped from the top floor into the dark to escape.

An initial investigation indicated that Christmas decorations attached to the ceiling probably caught fire and dropped onto the crowd, Ijsselmuiden said.

Volendam Police Chief Jan Schouten said temperatures on the cafe’s ceiling reached about 1,500 to 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit. The ceiling decorations were mostly evergreen branches, Schouten told the news conference.

“It was a very intense but short fire,” said Cor Kwakman, a town spokesman. “There was a lot of panic. . . . The smoke was very thick. We heard people were walking over each other.”

Many of those who suffered burns were wearing clothes made of highly flammable synthetic fabrics.

A doctor at a burn center in nearby Beverwijk said he expected the death toll to rise because many people had suffered severe burns and smoke inhalation.

“The combination of serious burn wounds and damage to the lungs . . . is almost always lethal. Ten to 15 people are injured very badly” in that way, he told Dutch television.

Ijsselmuiden said he could not confirm or deny reports that a number of fire exits in the cafe were blocked.

Public prosecutors were considering a criminal investigation and launched preliminary inquiries.