Fifty-one people have died and over 100 have been injured in a nightclub fire in North Macedonia, Interior Minister Pance Toskovski said at a press conference on Sunday in front of the police station in the town of Kočani, where the tragedy occurred.
The fire broke out at around 2:30 am (0130 GMT) on Sunday when the popular local band DNK was performing at the nightclub Puls, the minister said.
A spark machine used for lighting effects triggered the fire, according to the current state of investigations, he said, adding that the sparks ignited the ceiling construction, which was made of highly flammable material.
Several people have been arrested in connection with the disaster, including the concert organizers.
At the time of the catastrophe, 1,500 mainly young people were present in the nightclub.
Media in North Macedonia reported dramatic scenes. Desperate parents were searching for their children with photos on social media platforms.
Local people assisted with their own cars and followed ambulances to transport seriously injured people to hospital.
The hospital in Kočani, a town with a population of 25,000, quickly became overwhelmed. Ambulances also took injured people to the larger town of Štip as well as to the capital Skopje.
Toskovski assured the press that anyone bearing criminal responsibility would be held accountable. He added: “Each of us should feel a moral responsibility. I do not know any normal person who would not have a moral responsibility.”
Mass disasters are not uncommon in south-eastern Europe. They are almost always caused by human error, disregard of safety regulations and the complicity of corrupt state supervisory agencies. At the same time, they often lead to political upheavals.
For instance, the collapse of a newly renovated train station canopy in the city of Novi Sad in Serbia which neighbours North Macedonia in November, which resulted in 15 fatalities, triggered one of the largest waves of protests in the history of the country.
In the capital Belgrade, just on Saturday, hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets to protest against corruption in the country.
However, the disaster in Kočani particularly recalls the fire disaster in October 2015 at the Colectiv nightclub in the Romanian capital Bucharest.
In that fire and the ensuing mass panic, 64 people were killed and 147 others were injured. The then Romanian prime minister Victor Ponta soon after declared his resignation following massive protests.