Horror as 51 dead in North Macedonia nightclub fire

Tragedy has struck in North Macedonia after a fire tore through a packed nightclub, killing 51 revellers and injuring over 100.

Tragedy has struck in North Macedonia after a fire tore through a packed nightclub.

More than 1000 revellers had crammed in to Pulse, a nightclub in the eastern town of Kocani, to see popular hip-hop duo DNK.

Fifty-one revellers attending the concert at the venue were killed, and more than 100 wounded when a fire broke out, the country’s interior minister said on Sunday.

“According to the data we have by now, 51 persons lost their lives,” interior minister Pance Toskovski said after visiting the scene.

“More than 100 persons are injured.”

Toskovski said the wounded had been transported to the local hospital in the town, as well as to the capital Skopje and the town of Stip, about 30 kilometres south.

The concert kicked off around midnight with online media outlet SDK reporting the fire started at 3am (0200 GMT).

Footage reportedly shows chaos inside the venue with young people running through smoke. The musicians urged concertgoers to escape as fast as possible.

Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski said the government was “fully mobilised and will do everything necessary to deal with the consequences and determine the causes of this tragedy”.

Writing on Facebook, he said “so many” young lives were lost on this “difficult and very sad day”.

A massive fire has torn through a nightclub in North Macedonia's southern town of Kocani. Picture: X

According to Toskovski, the fire was probably caused by the use of pyrotechnic devices “used for light effect at the concert”.

“At the moment of activating the so-called sprinklers, the sparks caught the ceiling that was made of easily flammable material after which for a very short period of time the fire spread across the whole discotheque, creating a thick smoke,” Toskovski said.

Helicopters ferried some of the wounded to the capital Skope’s hospitals. Videos posted on social networks and shot before the fire show the use of stage jets, a type of indoor fireworks used during concerts.

Other videos published by media in the Balkan country show the entrance to the building blackened by flames.

In September 2021, a major fire killed 14 people at a unit for Covid-19 patients in the northwestern town of Tetovo.

– With AFP

Originally published as Horror as 51 dead in North Macedonia nightclub fire