59 dead in North Macedonia nightclub fire, at least 155 injured

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

They said 155 people injured in the club in the small town of Kocani had been taken to hospitals across the country, 18 of them in critical condition. Some of the serious cases were to be taken to other European countries for treatment.

The head of the Kocani hospital, Kristina Serafimovska, said the dead identified there were all between the ages of 14 and 24.

The fire started in Club Pulse at around 3am local time, when the place was packed with more than 1,000 mostly young fans attending a concert by popular hip-hop duo DNK.

“Initially we didn’t believe there was a fire. Then there was huge panic in the crowd and a stampede to get out,” a young woman who was at the concert told local media outside a hospital in the capital Skopje.

Fire crews and paramedics responded quickly and “tried to resuscitate people … but it wasn’t enough”, said the woman, who was waiting outside for one of her friends, who was being treated for burns to his hand.