CAIRO, 7 September 2005 — At least 32 people perished in a fire in an Egyptian theater apparently set off by lighted candles used on stage, with the blaze provoking a deadly stampede as burning spectators tried desperately to flee.

Flames swept through the theater in the town of Beni Suef on the banks of the Nile south of Cairo late on Monday in the deadliest inferno Egypt has witnessed in years.

Poor safety measures were blamed for the tragedy as only one of two exits was working. Safety regulations in public places are rarely enforced in Egypt and television footage showed a man using just a small fire extinguisher to battle the flames. The performance of the play “Zoo” was part of an experimental theater festival that brought together actors from across Egypt.

Interior Ministry sources said the dead included three actors, three students from an arts academy and three journalists, two of them from state-owned newspapers and one from the opposition Al-Wafd daily. “Egyptian theater will take a long time to recover from this tragedy,” playwright Nasser Abdel Moneim told AFP.

Footage aired by Egyptian public television showed a man — his face distorted by pain and the flesh on his arms torn off by the flames — throwing himself to the ground and struggling to rip off his burning clothes.

Actors and journalists were among the victims, sending shockwaves through the country’s artistic community.

Hospital sources told the official MENA news agency that some of the bodies were burned beyond recognition while 12 of the 37 wounded were in serious condition and some had to be evacuated to the capital for treatment. Witnesses quoted by the Egyptian press said it took firefighters more than two hours to put out the fire, which started at about 11:30 p.m. (2030 GMT), reducing much of the theater to ashes and also destroying palm trees nearby.

One witness told the state-owned Al-Akhbar newspaper that the fire transformed the theater into “hell.”