Simon,
I don't have anything really significant to contribute right at this moment, so I will just make a few comments:
1. That sole scenario of a lone firefighter wetting the flame-less outside wall is indeed weird. But, of course, it may be a technical issue. Wikipedia has a section on closed-volume fire extinguishing methods:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefighti ... olume_fire
But really weird is the third picture in the series where a guy in a blue-striped shirt is putting his hand on the back of the firefighter. Where did you find that?
2. Not being a connoisseur in photography, I am not sure how important the façade color issue is. In any case, it's a good thing to have on record. Sometimes other finds made long afterwards add relevance to seemingly unimportant details.
3. Regarding the people outside the nightclub calmly watching the smoke billowing out, I was wondering: maybe they were never inside in the first place. The club was twice over its capacity, the weather was probably warm and the streets are likely pretty safe in Santa Maria. Maybe the pictures were taken before the clubgoers started coming out. Just a thought.
http://fotoforensics.com/analysis.php?i ... 925.261931
And shouldn't we have plenty of rescue teams and ambulances here? Are we to believe that Brazil is some sort of retrograde, under-developed "third-world" nation in the middle of nowhere? Well, here's an image showing three guys haplessly carrying a victim around, RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE KISS DISCO ENTRANCE!
4. Yes and no. In my city (over 2.5 million inhabitants, ten times the pop size of Santa Maria), the municipal government has 4 mobile ICUs (with physician) and 8 ambulances (without physician), give or take 2, believe it or not! Since my city is a state capital, in the case of such an emergency the state government would offer to send additional ambulances (40-min drive away) and some ambulances belonging to private health insurance firms might be scrambled (this information is fresh from a local mobile ICU physician friend of mine). As a smaller hinterland location, Santa Maria would hardly enjoy a similar array of options. In reality, Brazilian taxi drivers do most of the ambulance driving. Taxis are usually white cars with red license plates.
In Brazil, a town of 250,000 pop may have the purchasing power of an American town with 10-15.000 pop. A town like Santa Maria would give visitors the impression of having only one fifth of the actual population. But, as you say, Brazil is not a retrograde, under-developed third-world nation. Everyone has an iPhone, GPS and a 40-inch plasma TV, and doctors are often as competent as, if not more than, doctors in Europe and the US. We just don't have basic supplies in the hospitals, and people can't spell anymore! It's a strange land of contrasts.
5. The people removing the window grate before the "waterfighter" has started sprinkling the wall: I have no plausible explanation for that, if in fact it is a window grate. It certainly looks like it. Are there any other pictures/videos that might confirm the existence of a grate on the right side?
6. As you pointed out, several shots outside the disco are remarkably well lit. True, it looks like some strong light was suspended over the scene. No clue.
http://fotoforensics.com/analysis.php?i ... f8d.157344
7. The inconsistency of the hip of the roof to the left of the disco is a total mystery to me. But it seems most of the roof/color/foreground anomalies appear in CNN reports.
8. Your point that the largest damage appears to be above a soot-free room, right where the wall has been broken into, is good, but inconclusive. According to the floor plans (for what they are worth!), the space immediately behind the front wall may be a separate store room, perhaps protected by a conventional cement ceiling.
9. You mention soot stripes above the entrance. I am not sure I get your point, but to me they look like ondulations caused by exposure to heat, not fire. If so, they may or may not appear in images, depending on the lighting and quality.
10. You ask if "the conditions of this club (ceiling and all) are consistent with the official account?" That is a very difficult question, but maybe we can give a partial answer to that when the forensic teams release their reports. Again, what do we mean by "official account"? How official are the sources to which we have had access so far?
The pictures of the burnt/suffocated bodies look like something from another planet! I don't know what to think, but it strikes me that shirts burn easier than pants!
Apparently, a painter climbed up on the KISS roof and wrote "JUSTICE FOR ALL"
11. Yes, and again an impossible, nonsensical accent was placed on the letter "Á".
12. I looked at the interviews with the girls, Mayara Pereira and Pamela Vedovotto. It's difficult to say anything because of the awful dubbing (I found no undubbed version), but the blond girl could certainly be an actress. Her story rings false. The other girl looks somewhat credible. But hey, this is CNN again!
each time a tragedy/disaster/or terror attack occurs, one or more strikingly pretty women would be available for the media to use as 'poster-girls' to maximize their profits. Such consistent, sequential 'luck' would be tantamount to a Las Vegas gambler striking the jackpot each time he walks into a casino.
13. I beg to differ. It is not hard to find pretty young women among the witnesses or victims of real-life incidents involving dozens, hundreds or thousands of people. In a nightclub in a Brazilian town, of which "the life blood" is a university campus, you could find 200 girls to fit the bill. By the way, thank God for that
14. Having said that, I agree the media have clearly chosen (or created) Michele "Facebook" Cardoso as their poster girl for this incident, whatever the reason is. Those six pictures of her with that, as you say, mono-expressive pretty face are gross! Looks like right out of a sim handbook. But why are they so grainy? Were they enlarged for comparison?
