51 dead in disco fire in North Macedonia

A devastating fire at a nightclub in North Macedonia has killed 51 people and injured more than 100 others. This was stated by the North Macedonian Interior Minister Pance Toskovski at a press conference in front of the police station in the small town of Kocani, where the tragedy occurred.

According to the minister, the fire broke out at around 2.30 a.m. on Sunday night when the popular local band DNK was giving a concert in the "Puls" discotheque. According to the investigations so far, a spark machine used for lighting effects started the fire. The sparks ignited the ceiling construction, which was made of highly flammable material, he added. Several people have been arrested in connection with the accident, including organizers of the concert.

At the time of the disaster, 1,500 mainly young people are said to have been in the disco. Media in North Macedonia reported dramatic scenes. Desperate parents were searching for their children with photos on social media. Citizens helped out with their own cars and followed the ambulances to take seriously injured people to hospital. The hospital in Kocani, a town of 25,000 inhabitants, quickly proved to be overwhelmed. Ambulances also took the injured to the larger town of Stip and to the capital Skopje.

Toskovski assured the press that anyone who bore criminal responsibility would also be held accountable. "Each of us should feel a moral responsibility. I don't know any normal person who doesn't have moral responsibility," he added.

Disasters in the region are often man-made

Mass disasters are not uncommon in south-eastern Europe. In almost all cases, they are caused by human error, non-compliance with safety regulations and the complicity of corrupt state supervisory authorities. At the same time, they often cause political upheaval.

For example, the collapse of a newly renovated station canopy in the Serbian city of Novi Sad in November last year, resulting in 15 deaths, triggered one of the largest waves of protest in Serbia's history. In the capital Belgrade, hundreds of thousands of people had just taken to the streets on Saturday to demonstrate against the corrupt conditions in the country.

However, the disaster in Kocani is primarily reminiscent of the fire disaster in the Bucharest nightclub "Colectiv" in October 2015. The fire and subsequent stampede killed 64 people and injured 147 others. The then Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta resigned shortly afterwards following massive protests.