In another caustic assessment of the nightclub fire, the newspaper O Globo said in an editorial on Tuesday that an array of factors, involving “administrative ineptitude, corruption, omission of public authorities and conformity of the common citizen,” contributes to a loss of life in Brazil that is at once alarming and banal.

“The tragedy in Santa Maria imposes on society a reflection about a national culture of leniency,” O Globo said, singling out traffic deaths on Brazil’s roads during national holidays as another example of senseless tragedy in which individual responsibility plays a part.

Still, the swift reaction by the authorities to the nightclub fire has lifted hope among some Brazilians that it could be a turning point. The 1903 fire at Chicago’s Iroquois Theater, which killed more than 600 people, spurred tougher safety standards in the United States, and many Brazilians are hoping for the same kind of reaction.

Police investigators detained four people for questioning on Monday, including two owners of the club who the authorities said had been operating with an expired permit and without a fire alarm or sprinklers.

Two members of the band suspected of starting the fire with a pyrotechnics display were also taken into custody. One inspector told reporters at a news conference on Tuesday that band members had bought flares meant for outdoor use because they cost $1.25 a piece, compared with $35 for an indoor flare.

In other Brazilian cities, the authorities are reviewing code regulations and are raiding establishments found to be in violation. For instance, in Manaus, the largest city in the Brazilian Amazon, officials shut down 17 nightclubs, some which were found to have had empty fire extinguishers.

But scholars of Brazil’s labyrinthine regulatory systems say the real work goes beyond a few arrests and inspections. Moacyr Duarte, a senior researcher at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, said complex and inefficient public bureaucracies remained an obstacle to disaster prevention, even as public budgets have been strengthened over the past decade.