Andre Penner / AP

Protestors line a highway barrier in front of a burning barricade of tires near the Castelao stadium in Fortaleza, Brazil, Wednesday, June 19, 2013. Protesters cut off the main access road to the stadium where Brazil goes up against Mexico in the Confederations Cup soccer tournament. Beginning as protests against bus fare hikes, demonstrations have quickly ballooned to include broad middle-class outrage over the failure of governments to provide basic services and ensure public safety.

Leaders in Brazil's two biggest cities said Wednesday that they have reversed an increase in bus and subway fares that ignited protests across the nation. 

However, many doubted the move would help abate the demonstrations that have moved well beyond the outrage over the fare hikes into communal cries against poor public services in Latin America's biggest nation. 

"This will represent a big sacrifice and we will have to reduce investments in other areas," Sao Paulo Mayor Fernando Haddad said. He didn't give details on where other cuts would occur. 

Rio de Janeiro Mayor Eduardo Paes also confirmed that the fare increase would be rescinded in that city. 

Scattered street demonstrations continued in some parts of Brazil, including Rio's sister city of Niteroi, as protesters demand improvements of the public services they receive in exchange for high taxes and rising prices. 

In one of several protests, about 200 people blocked the Anchieta Highway that links Sao Paulo, the country's biggest city, and the port of Santos before heading to the industrial suburb of Sao Bernardo do Campo on Sao Paulo's outskirts. Another group of protesters later obstructed the highway again. 

In the northeastern city of Fortaleza, 15,000 protesters clashed with police trying to prevent them from reaching the Castelao stadium before Brazil's game with Mexico in the Confederations Cup soccer tournament. 

Andre Penner / AP

A protestor takes aim with a bottle at riot police as others take cover near the Castelao stadium in Fortaleza, Brazil, Wednesday, June 19, 2013. Street demonstrations resumed around Brazil Wednesday as protesters continued their collective cry against the low-quality public services they receive in exchange for high taxes and high prices.

Riot police used gas bombs and pepper spray to keep protesters from advancing past a barrier some 1.8 milesfrom the stadium. A police car was burned by demonstrators, who also threw rocks and other objects at officers. The protest disrupted fans' efforts to get in the stadium for Brazil's second match at the World Cup warm-up tournament. 

"We are against a government that spends billions in stadiums while people are suffering across the country," said Natalia Querino, a 22-year-old student participating in the protest. "We want better education, more security and a better health system." 

Earlier, hundreds of protesters cut off the main access road to the stadium, and police responded by diverting traffic away from the road. Official vehicles of the international soccer organization, FIFA, were among those struggling to reach the stadium. 

In the city of Belo Horizonte, some 2,000 protesters took to the streets in a peaceful demonstration, while protesters were reported gathering in Niteroi, across Guanabara Bay from Rio de Janeiro. 

The actions followed another night of mass marches around Brazil and nearly a week of unrest that has shocked the country's leaders ahead of a papal visit next month and next year's World Cup soccer tournament. 

Beginning as protests against bus fare hikes, the demonstrations have quickly ballooned to include broad middle-class outrage over the failure of the government to provide basic services and ensure public safety, even as Brazil's economy modernizes and tax rates remain some of the highest in the world. 

Protest organizers, who have widely employed social media, called for mass demonstrations Thursday in Sao Paulo and Rio, the country's two biggest cities. The Rio action promised the most volatility, with protesters planning to march to Maracana stadium where Spain and Tahiti are to play in a Confederations Cup match. Police said they would not allow protesters to interrupt the game. 

Soldiers from Brazil's elite National Force have been sent to Fortaleza, Rio, Belo Horizonte, Salvador and Brasilia to bolster security during tournament games. 

FIFA President Sepp Blatter urged protesters to stop linking their anger against the government to the Confederations Cup. The cost of building stadiums for the FIFA tournaments has been a regular complaint at marches. 

In an interview with Brazil's Globo TV network, Blatter said he could "understand that people are not happy, but they should not use football to make their demands heard." 

"We did not impose the World Cup on Brazil," he said. 

On Tuesday night, tens of thousands of Brazilians flooded central Sao Paulo, with the protest following the rhythm of mobilizations that drew some 240,000 people across Brazil the previous night. Though mostly peaceful, small bands of radicals split off in Sao Paulo to fight with police. 

Fernando Grella Vieira, head of the Sao Paulo state public safety department, said 63 people were detained during Tuesday's protests. He told Globo TV that police would guarantee the right to demonstrate but would "repress all forms of vandalism." 

Police said those arrested had looted stores during the protest in downtown Sao Paulo and were caught running away with clothing, TV sets, microwave ovens and computers. 

TV footage showed protesters breaking into shuttered newsstands and stealing cigarettes and candy. Other images showed demonstrators smashing windows of banks and stores. 

Beyond complaints about transit fares, protesters haven't produced any concrete demands even as they've waved signs, gone on social media and chanted their anger at the entire governing system. A common cry at the rallies: "No parties!" 

"What I hope comes from these protests is that the governing class comes to understand that we're the ones in charge, not them, and the politicians must learn to respect us," said Yasmine Gomes, a 22-year-old squeezed into the plaza in central Sao Paulo where Tuesday night's protest began. 

President Dilma Rousseff, a former leftist guerrilla who was imprisoned and tortured during Brazil's 1964-85 dictatorship, has hailed the protests for raising questions and strengthening Brazil's democracy. "Brazil today woke up stronger," she said in a statement Tuesday. 

Yet Rousseff offered no actions that her government might take to address complaints. 

The protests have raised troubling questions about the country's ability to provide security ahead of it playing host to some of the world's biggest events, including the 2016 Olympics in Rio. 

Mass protests are rare in this 190 million-person country, with demonstrations generally attracting small numbers of politicized participants. 

Many now protesting in Brazil's streets hail from the country's growing middle class, which government figures show has ballooned by some 40 million people over the past decade amid a commodities-driven economic boom. 

The protesters say they've lost patience with endemic problems such as government corruption and inefficiency. They're also slamming Brazil's government for spending billions of dollars to host the World Cup and Olympics while leaving other needs unmet. 

A November government report raised to $13.3 billion the projected cost of stadiums, airport renovations and other projects for the World Cup. City, state and other local governments are spending more than $12 billion on projects for the Olympics in Rio. 

Attorney Agatha Rossi de Paula, who attended Tuesday's protest in Sao Paulo along with her mother, called Brazil's fiscal priorities "an embarrassment." 

"We just want what we paid in taxes back, through health care, education and transportation," said the 34-year-old. "We want the police to protect us, to help the people on the streets who have ended up with no job and no money." 

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Marcelo Sayão / EPA

Thousands of people participate in a protest against rising public transport costs in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 17 June 2013. Earlier police fired tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse hundreds of protesters near the Maracana Stadium in Rio de Janeiro. The demonstrators were protesting rising public transport costs and the billions of dollars spent on the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio, reports said.

SAO PAULO — More than 100,000 people took to the streets in overwhelmingly peaceful protests in at least eight cities Monday, demonstrations that voiced the deep frustrations Brazilians feel about carrying heavy tax burdens but receiving woeful returns in public education, health, security and transportation.

In Sao Paulo, Brazil's economic hub, at least 65,000 protesters gathered at a small, treeless plaza then broke into three directions in a Carnival atmosphere, with drummers beating out samba rhythms as the crowds chanted anti-corruption jingles. They also focused on the cause that initially sparked the protests last week - a 10-cent hike in bus and subway fares.

Hundreds of protesters in the capital, Brasilia, peacefully marched on congress, where dozens scrambled up a ramp to a low-lying roof, dancing on the structure's large, hallmark upward-turned bowl designed by famed architect Oscar Niemeyer. Some congressional windows were broken, but police did not use force to contain the damage.

"This is a communal cry saying: `We're not satisfied,"' Maria Claudia Cardoso said on a Sao Paulo avenue, taking turns waving a sign reading "(hash)revolution" with her 16-year-old son, Fernando, as protesters streamed by.

Stringer/Brazil / Reuters

Demonstrators shout anti-government slogans during one of many protests around Brazil's major cities in Sao Paulo June 17, 2013.

"We're massacred by the government's taxes - yet when we leave home in the morning to go to work, we don't know if we'll make it home alive because of the violence," she added. "We don't have good schools for our kids. Our hospitals are in awful shape. Corruption is rife. These protests will make history and wake our politicians up to the fact that we're not taking it anymore!"

The protests come after the opening matches of soccer's Confederations Cup over the weekend, just one month before a papal visit, a year before the World Cup and three years ahead of the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. The unrest is raising some security concerns, especially after protests last week in Sao Paulo and over the weekend in Rio produced injury-causing clashes with police.

Monday's demonstrations saw some violence. In Rio de Janeiro, a small group of protesters set a car on fire and threw rocks and flares at police. In the southern city of Porto Alegre, protesters hurled rocks at commuter trains.

But those were the exceptions to the peaceful norm.

Protest leaders went to pains to tell marchers that damaging public or private property would only damage their cause.

Police, too, changed tactics. In Sao Paulo, commanders said publicly Monday they would try to avoid violence, but warned they could resort to force if protesters destroyed property. During the first hours of the march that continued into the night there was barely any perceptible police presence.

The Sao Paulo march itself was a family oriented affair: A group of mothers received a rousing cheer when they arrived at the plaza where the march began, brandishing signs that said "Mothers Who Care Show Support."

"I'm here to make sure police don't hurt these kids," said Sandra Amalfe, whose 16-year-old daughter chatted with friends nearby. "We need better education, hospitals and security - not billions spent on the World Cup."

Officers in Rio fired tear gas and rubber bullets when a group of protesters invaded the state legislative assembly and hurled things at police. But most of the tens of thousands who protested in Rio did so peacefully, many of them dressed in white and brandishing placards and banners. Many people in the city left work early to avoid traffic jams downtown.

In Belo Horizonte, police estimated about 20,000 people joined a peaceful crowd protesting before a Confederations Cup match between Tahiti and Nigeria as police helicopters buzzed overhead and mounted officers patrolled the stadium area. Earlier in the day, demonstrators erected several barricades of burning tires on a nearby highway, disrupting traffic.

Protests also were reported in Curitiba, Belem and Salvador.

Marcos Lobo, a 45-year-old music producer who joined the protest in Sao Paulo, said the actions of police during earlier demonstrations persuaded him to come out Monday.

"I thought they (the protests) were infantile at first because of my preconceived notions," Lobo said. "Then I saw the aggression."

Another protester, Manoela Chiabai, said she wanted to express her dissatisfaction with the status quo.

"Everything in Brazil is a mess. There is no education, health care - no security. The government doesn't care," the 26-year-old photographer said. "We're a rich country with a lot of potential but the money doesn't go to those who need it most."

In a brief statement, President Dilma Rousseff, who faces re-election next year and whose popularity rating recently dipped for the first time in her presidency, acknowledged the protests, saying: "Peaceful demonstrations are legitimate and part of democracy. It is natural for young people to demonstrate."

Ariadne Natal, a professor at the University of Sao Paulo whose research focuses on violence, said protesters want to "take advantage of this moment when we have foreign visitors, when the world's press is watching, to showcase their cause."

"The problem we've seen is that the police action is trying to prevent these protests," she said. "What we need to figure out is how the protests as well as the big events can be carried out democratically."

Brazilians have long accepted malfeasance as a cost of doing business, whether in business or receiving public services. Brazilian government loses more than $47 billion each year to undeclared tax revenue, vanished public money and other widespread corruption, according to the Federation of Industries of Sao Paulo business group.

But in the last decade, about 40 million Brazilians have moved into the middle class and they have begun to demand more from government. Many are angry that billions of dollars in public funds are being spent to host the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics while few improvements are made elsewhere.

Protests are routine in Brazil, but few turn violent. Security experts say the demonstrations aren't the main danger for the hundreds of thousands of visitors who will descend on Brazil from now through the Olympics in 2016.

However, Joe Biundini, whose FAM International Group provides security details to executives attending the Confederations Cup, said there is a danger of escalating violence from the protests if authorities don't negotiate with demonstrators.

"If the government doesn't sit down with them it could get worse in future matches," Biundini said.

Keir Simmons / NBC News

Pablo Bizzi Mahmud, 20, lost 10 friends in the fire that tore through a nightclub in Santa Maria, Brazil, on Jan. 28, 2013. He is leading protests to demand better government safety standards.

SANTA MARIA, Brazil — Pablo Bizzi Mahmud might have died in the fire that tore through Kiss nightclub on Sunday morning, but the 20-year-old chose not to go. It turned out to be a fateful decision: 10 of his friends were among the 234 who died as flames and smoke engulfed the club before dawn.  

When asked if any of his friends survived that night he said no. "They were all killed," he said as he walked through the streets of his hometown, Santa Maria.

"I was born here, I know a lot of people here," he added. "Everybody knows someone who was there."

Mahmud's closest friend made it out but then went back in to help. He lost his life trying to rescue others. Another friend was taken to the hospital with serious injuries. He also perished.

Mahmud has never protested before but on Tuesday he led a march of around 1,000 people through Santa Maria to the mayor's office.

"Justice!" the protesters chanted in Portuguese.

"Police, government, give us justice!" Mahmud shouted to the crowd through a megaphone, his determination driven by his duty to the friends he lost.

Many on the march were friends of the the mostly young people who died in the blaze.

Barbara Henriquez, 28, and Natalia Isaia, 30, knew five who died. They said they had many questions and few answers.

Slideshow: Nightclub fire in Brazil

Felipe Dana / AP

A fast-moving nightclub inferno claimed the lives of more than 230 people in southern Brazil.

Launch slideshow

"Brazil doesn't do anything about it," said protester Mariana Barros, 22. "It takes a long time to do anything. We can't wait 10 years — we need it now."

According to local fire chief Moises Fuchs, it's the laws that need to change, and fast. Brazil is hosting both the World Cup soccer tournament next year and the 2016 Olympics.

"We need stronger reforms on our safety regulations," Fuchs said. 

Questions for investigators include why there was no sprinkler system, no fire alarm and only one way out.

Police now believe a flare used during a live music performance inside the club was intended for outdoor use only and may have started the blaze. It is also feared that toxins in the smoke included cyanide and dioxin, making it all the more deadly.

These are all issues the young people of Santa Maria want addressed.

As the march slowed, Mahmud handed the megaphone to another protester and listened. Overwhelmed, he buried his face in the shoulder of a friend.

"I have a Facebook message from one of my friends who was there," Mahmud said. "He is saying let's go to Carnival this year."

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SANTA MARIA, Brazil -— At 2 a.m. on Rua Dos Andradas, a crowd of young people stands in silence. There is nothing to say.

Two nights ago, on this same street, at this same time, a tragedy unfolded that is hard to comprehend. 

Outside the Kiss nightclub, where a blaze and its panicked aftermath claimed the lives of at least 230 partygoers – most of them students at the local university – the smell of smoke lingers in the air.

Now it has become a place to mourn and remember.

Among the survivors is Adreen Righi, 20, who is still trying to make sense of how the disaster unfolded.

Slideshow: Nightclub fire in Brazil

Felipe Dana / AP

A fast-moving nightclub inferno claimed the lives of more than 230 people in southern Brazil.

Launch slideshow

"I was dancing with my friends," she says, recovering at home. "People started pushing. I looked at the stage and there was smoke."

Pushed over in the panic, she was trampled to the ground but still found air. “Breathe, breathe, come on now breathe,” she told herself as others climbed over her.

Keir Simmons / NBC News

Mourners stand outside the Kiss nightclub in the early hours of Tuesday, two nights after a devastating fire killed at least 230 clubbers.

Then, she recalls, “an angel saved my life.” A woman she didn't know pushed her outside, to safety.

In the fresh air, she hugged her friends. But some were missing.

Her classmate, Juliano, had gone to the bathroom 15 minutes before the fire. She will never see him again.

“He was a good person,” she says, “always smiling. Making jokes. He was a good guy.”

She is “very happy” to be alive, but adds: “I can't explain how I feel about my friends, about the city.”

Santa Maria is in mourning, but there is also growing anger.

Investigators must now seek answers to the questions being asked here: Why did the nightclub apparently have only one exit? Why did fire extinguishers not work, as some witnesses have reported? Why did security staff briefly block exits to stop people leaving without paying their drinks tabs?

On the street outside the nightclub, a hand-made poster says: ‘Nada justifica, 231 assassinatos' – meaning ‘No justification – 231 murdered’.

The final death toll is still unclear, but the message is stark. 

Keir Simmons / NBC News

'No justification – 231 murdered'. A sign posted outside the Kiss nightclub in Santa Maria.

Globo television said 53 seriously-injured victims remain in Porto Alegre, state capital of Rio Grande do Sul,where a support unit has also been set up with psychologists to help relatives of victims.

Police officials said four people are still under temporary arrest over the disaster. Local media reports on Monday said those detained were two owners of the Kiss club and two members of a band whose pyrotechnic display is thought to have set light to the club's sound-proofed ceiling. None of the arrests imply any criminal accusation, police said.

Protesters marched through the town late Monday, carrying flowers, balloons and placards with the names of the victims, according to Globo, which reported that as many as 30,000 took part.

Among them, Eglon Do Canto told The Associated Press: "We hope that the justice system, through its competent mechanisms, succeeds in clarifying to the public what happened, and gives the people an explanation."

Edgar Zuniga Jr, NBC News in Atlanta, contributed to this report.

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