At least 59 people have been killed and more than 155 injured in a fire in the Puls discotheque in Kočani, North Macedonia, government officials stated.
The nightclub fire broke out at 2:30 local time on Saturday night during a concert by domestic hip-hop band DNK, allegedly attended by around 1.500 persons.
Initial reports and social media videos indicated use of pyrotechnic devices during the performance as cause of the fire, which engulfed the ceiling and spread to the roof.
The majority of victims of the tragedy are aged 14 to 24, and are residents of Skopje, Štip, Probištip and Kočani. The final number of deceased persons is huge, but we cannot state the final figure until the end of identification, the Director of Kočani General Hospital Kristina Serafimova stated in media statement.
“In our hospital we are currently taking care of 20 injured persons, aged 18 to 23. Our patients have suffered minor injuries, burns and intoxication. When we received an alert about the fire last night, the whole hospital mobilized in 30 minutes, all the nurses came to work and were able to accept the first patients. We asked for help in ambulance vehicles from the other hospitals in Veles and Skopje. The patients with grave injuries were taken to Skopje. We examined 70 patients overall so far. We also accepted some of the deceased persons, while some of our patients were in the process of dying while they were being brought,” Serafimova said.
During the morning, family members of youth suspected of attending the concert have been posting their images on social media as a way to find out whether they had been hospitalized and where.
In a separate statement for the media given in front of Kočani police station at noon, the Minister of Interior Panče Toškovski stated that 35 out of the 59 deceased persons had been identified so far, including 31 residents of Kočani and 4 residents of Štip. He added that one of the victims was a policeman investigating illicit drug trafficking in the nightclub.
“We have examined 10 hospitalized persons, including one member of the band DNK. An arrest warrant had been issued for four persons. The Ministry of Economy is also examining the licensing documentation of the discotheque,” Toškovski stated .
Kočani (also written as Kocani or Kochani) is a town in the eastern region of North Macedonia with a population of around 25 thousand people.
