(ANSA-AFP) - SKOPJE, MAR 16 - A fire tore through a nightclub
in North Macedonia early Sunday, killing 59 people, apparently
after on-stage fireworks set the venue ablaze, authorities said,
announcing arrest warrants for four people. They said 155
injured people 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 blaze
started in the Club Pulse in the eastern town of Kocani around
3:00 am (0200 GMT), as the place was packed with more than 1,000
mostly young fans attending a concert by a popular hip-hop duo
called DNK. "Initially we didn't believe there was a fire. Then
there was huge panic in the crowd and a stampede to get out,"
one 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. The
fire was probably caused by the use of pyrotechnic devices "used
for light effects at the concert", said Interior Minister Pance
Toskovski, who visited the scene with Prime Minister Hristijan
Mickoski. "Sparks caught the ceiling, which was made of easily
flammable material, after which the fire rapidly spread across
the whole discotheque, creating thick smoke," Toskovski said.
(ANSA-AFP).
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