A massive fire torn a nightclub in the eastern city in northern Macedonia, Kocani, on Sunday, killing 59 people and injuring 155, the authorities announced.
Advertising The Blaze broke out around 2:30 am during a concert by a local pop group at Club Pulse, said the Minister of the Interior, Panche Toshkovski, to journalists. He said that 39 of the dead had so far been identified.
He said that after an initial assessment, pyrotechnics probably caught the roof. The videos showed chaos inside the club, the young people crossing the smoke while the musicians urged people to escape as quickly as possible.
While relatives gathered in front of the hospitals to wait for news, Dragi Stojanov, a resident of Kocani, was informed that his 21 -year -old son, Tomce, had died in the fire.
“He was my only child. I no longer need my life,” he said. “One hundred and fifty families have been devastated.”
Boris Grdanoski / AP
Officials said the injured had been taken to hospitals in the country, including the capital, Skopje, many of whom have serious burns. The effort was assisted by several volunteer organizations.
The Minister of Health, Arben Taravari, said that 118 people had been hospitalized, adding that he had received assistance offers from neighboring countries, including Albania, Bulgaria, Greece and Serbia.
“All of our abilities have been used, in maximum efforts to save as many lives as possible young people involved in this tragedy,” Taravari told journalists, sometimes seemingly shaken.
It is the worst tragedy of recent memory to reach the landlocked nation, whose population is less than 2 million.
President Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova visited the victims of burns in a Skopje hospital and spoke to parents who were waiting outside the building.
“It’s terrible … Difficult to believe how it happened,” she said, her voice stopping with emotion. “We have to give courage to these young people to continue.”
In an online article, Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski wrote: “It is a difficult day and very sad for Macedonia. The loss of so many young lives is irreparable, and the pain of families, dear beings and friends is immeasurable.”
Family members gathered in front of the hospitals and city offices in Kocani, about 115 kilometers (72 miles) east of Skopje, begging for the authorities for more information.
The club was in a former building which was previously a carpet warehouse and has been taking place for several years, according to local MKD media.
The fire caused the roof of the building on one floor partially, revealing the charred remains of wooden beams and debris. The police have completed the site and sent evidence that brings together teams in an operation also involving state prosecutors.
A state prosecutor, Ljubco Kocevski, said that several people were questioned by the police, but gave no detail and stressed that the cause of the fire was still the subject of an investigation.
Officials of the Interior Ministry said that the authorities would investigate the license and security provisions of the place, adding that the government had “moral responsibility” to help pursue any responsible person. The police have already arrested a man, but he did not provide details on the participation of the person.
As they woke up to the news of the tragedy overnight, the neighbors and immediate leaders of the country from further away in Europe sent condolences.
The head of the European Union foreign policy, Kaja Kallas, posted on X that she was “deeply saddened” and said that the 27 nations block “shares the sorrow and the pain of the people of northern Macedonia”. Northern Macedonia is a candidate for EU membership.
The condolences also flocked to politicians from the region, notably the Albanian Prime Minister EDI Rama, the European Commissioner for enlargement, Marta Kos, and the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
“I wish those who have been injured in rapid recovery. Ukraine is crying alongside our Macedonian friends (North) on this sad day,” wrote Zelenskyy on X.
Pyrotechnic has often been the cause of deadly fires in nightclubs, including that of the Co -Corctiv Club in Bucharest, Romania, in 2015, during which 64 people died.
