At least 59 people were killed and another 155 were injured when a fire broke out during the night in a disco in northern fruit salad, the country’s interior minister, Toshkovski benches, said Sunday. The flammate – the most fatal national tragedy in recent memory – has horrified the small town in south Europe – eastern.
“The loss of so many young lives is irreparable and the pain of families, loved ones and friends is immeasurable,” wrote Prime Minister Hritijan Mickoski on X.
The police arrested 15 people, including the director of the club and his owner’s son, said Toshkovski, interior minister. He said the company that the club managed did not have a license. He added that several former officials or current ones had been arrested in relation to the case.
“This license – like many other things in the past in Macedonia – is connected to corruption and corruption,” he said. “But I want to tell the Macedonian public that, unlike other times in the past, people who emit these illegal licenses will be named and will be held responsible for them.”
Toshkovski said that about 500 people had been inside the club, but that only 250 tickets had been sold by the club in Kocani, who is about 50 miles east of the capital, Skopje. The blaze torn the club in the eastern city of Kocani during a pop concert, added, adding that the fireworks caused the roof.
A police officer died while he was on duty in the club to verify the presence of drugs or minor guests, he said.
The patients under injuries were between 16 and 24 years old, Dr. Kristina Serafimova, director of a hospital in Kocani, told journalists. Many people died in an escape, he said, while people in panic tried to escape the fire.
“He is devastating,” said Goran Georgijev, 47, who lives a few steps from the club, in a telephone interview. He said that his neighbor’s daughter, who was 17 years old, died in the fire, as well as the children of two of his friends. They were 21 and 22 years old, he said.
“I can’t even take the phone to call them,” said Georgijev of his friends and neighbors. “I don’t know what to say.”
Mr. Georgijev used to go to the nightclub when he was younger, he said, adding that he was poorly built and had a ceiling covered with cloth. He said he heard a cracking sound around 3 in the morning, and then the scream of the sirens.
“I knew that something terrible was happening,” he said, adding, “it’s a tragic day for all of us”.
The budget of the victims can still increase. Arben Taravari, Minister of Health, told journalists that 20 people were in critical conditions and some patients were sent to hospitals from other countries.
And for many in the northern Macedonia, a small town of about two million people who border Albania, Greece, Bulgaria, Kosovo and Serbia, the fire has raised painful memories of other tragedies.
In 2021, a fire in a hospital for patients with Coronavirus killed at least 14 people. In the same year, 45 people were killed when a North Macedonian tourist bus crashed into flames.
“Every year we have a tragedy connected to the fire,” said every Janeski in an interview, who directs an ethical advice at the Association of Journalists of Macedonia.
While the circumstances of the fire in the club remain unclear, Janeski said that official corruption has contributed to a series of these accidents in northern Macedonia. People were already assuming that it was also the case of the last tragedy, he said.
“There is this overwhelming sense of pain and frustration in the public,” he said. “Nobody believes in the system,” he added.
Some people were setting connections to Serbia in social media posts, he said. More than 100,000 people marched as a sign of protest in Belgrade on Saturday for the deaths last year of 15 people killed by the collapse of a canopy in a railway station. Many blamed the catastrophe of poor works linked to corrupt officials.
The government in northern fruit salad has declared a period of national mourning of one week and has ordered an inspection of all the night clubs in the next three days.
“All the subjects involved in this tragic event and have consciously contributed to endangering human life will be brought before the justice authorities and will be held responsible,” said the government in a note.
The fire is one of the numerous mortal infernos in clubs around the world in recent years. The rooms are often dark, crowded and noisy. People can fight to evacuate quickly – or even realize that there is an emergency.
Last year, at least 29 people were killed in a club fire in Istanbul. In 2023, 13 people died when a club complex took fire in Spain. A 2015 fire killed at least 27 people in Romania and one in 2013 killed at least 233 people in Brazil. In 2003, a fire in a club in the Rhode Island, which was started by pyrotechnics, killed 100 people.
Each Cantarevik, a journalist from Telma, a national television station, said in a telephone interview that Kocani – a small town in a region where many people work in agriculture – was devastated by the tragedy.
“People are angry,” he said. “People want answers and people want to know who is responsible.”
Young people often leave the country to look for work or wages higher abroad, he said, and many Macedonians are frustrated by low wages and corruption.
“Moral is low,” Cantarevik said. “The last thing we need is a tragedy of this scale in which young and innocent children die.”
Yan Zhuang Contributed relationships.