North Macedonia nightclub fire kills 59, wounds 155 others

A fire tore through a nightclub in North Macedonia early Sunday, killing 59 people, apparently after on-stage fireworks set the venue ablaze, authorities said, announcing arrest warrants for four people.

They said 155 injured people had been taken to hospitals across the country, 18 of them in critical condition. Some of the more serious cases were to be taken to hospitals in other European countries, the country’s Crisis Centre said.

The blaze started in the Club Pulse in the eastern town of Kocani as the place was packed with more than 1,000 mostly young fans attending a concert by a popular hip-hop duo called DNK.

“The fire started around 2:30am (0130 GMT), the sparklers that were on stage ignited the styrofoam on the ceiling. I heard an explosion and the roof collapsed,” one young person who was inside for the concert told local media.

“We all rushed to get out, we all ran towards one door that was for both entry and exit,” they were quoted as saying.

Another, a young woman waiting outside a hospital in the capital Skopje for a friend being treated for burns, said: “Initially we didn’t believe there was a fire. Then there was huge panic in the crowd and a stampede to get out.”

The fire was probably caused by pyrotechnic devices “used for light effects at the concert,” said Interior Minister Pance Toskovski, who visited the scene with Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski.

“Sparks caught the ceiling, which was made of easily flammable material, after which the fire rapidly spread across the whole discotheque, creating thick smoke,” Toskovski said.

The interior ministry announced arrest warrants for four people in relation to the tragedy, and a criminal investigation. It did not immediately give further details about those targeted by the warrants.

The head of the Kocani hospital, Kristina Serafimovska, told media that “most of the dead unfortunately suffered injuries from the stampede that occurred in the panic while trying to exit”.

“Seventy of the patients have burns and carbon monoxide poisoning,” she said.