Rio de Janeiro is hot at the best of time, sweltering at the worst, but today, is something else altogether; a building the size of a city block is blazing in the setting sun, sending waves of heat out for miles.

Later, no one was really able to say what happened; investigators found no trace of evidence one way or another, but when questioned, several witnesses swore they heard laughter coming from the inferno, and one little girl swore that it was a cat that did it.