[originaltext] ASUNCION, Paraguay—Survivors in a crowded supermarket said loc

ASUNCION, Paraguay—Survivors in a crowded supermarket said locked doors kept them from escaping and may have been to blame for many of the at least 256 deaths in Paraguay’s worst disaster in more than half a century.
   Hundreds more were injured, many with serious burns, after the blaze swept through the multilevel supermarket on the outskirts of the capital, Asuncion, while it was crowded with Sunday shoppers.
   Officials said it was the worst tragedy in Paraguay since a failed military insurrection in 1947 left some 8,000 people dead.
   The heat of the blaze caused one floor to collapse, crushing dozens of cars in the parking lot as flames engulfed the motorists inside, police said. Badly burned bodies, some with twisted limbs, were whisked away as black billows of smoke rose overhead.  Rescuers led away dozens of children found near the store’s toy department.
   Authorities said they had detained two owners of the supermarket for questioning about reports by some survivors that doors had been locked, k statement released by the management denied doors were locked after the fire broke out to prevent looting.
   The fire may have been fueled by an exploding gas canister in the food court area. But authorities said they still had not concluded what cause the blaze.
   Several levels of the multilevel supermarket were covered in soot, including a lower level parking garage where cars were crushed and burned.
   An Associated Press photographer at the scene said hundreds of neighbors living nearby rushed to the scene, helping to carry bodies from the building as firefighters held water hoses. One woman, her face caked in soot, cried as she was carried away on the shoulders of a rescuer.
   Stretched for emergency services including medical equipment, Paraguayan authorities frantically sought additional ambulances from remote interior cities, even neighboring Argentina.