Officials in Kochani, North Macedonia investigate a fire in the Pulse nightclub that killed 59 people and injured 155 more Sunday. Photo by Georgi Licovski/EPA
March 16 (UPI) — A fire at a nightclub in North Macedonia killed 59 people and injured 155 more after a pyrotechnics display went out of control during a concert early Sunday.
Hundreds of people were at Club Pulse in Kochani to watch the band DNK perform when the blaze broke out after sparks from the pyrotechnics display drifted up and caught the ceiling on fire, France 24 reported.
The victims ranged in age from 16 to 24, according to health officials, including several members of the band, CNN reported.
According to North Macedonian state media outlet MIA, most of the people who died were trampled in the panicked crowd, the state media outlet MIA reported.
A well known European soccer player, Andrej Lazarov, 25, was also confirmed among those to have been killed, FC Shkupi announced in an Instagram post Sunday.
“The fire was caused by pyrotechnics used for lighting effects at the concert and activated the sprinklers,” Interior Minister Panche Toshkovski said at a press conference Sunday.
“Most likely, sparks caught a part of the ceiling that was made of flammable material, causing the fire to spread to the entire discotheque in a short period of time, creating thick smoke,” he said
Toshkovski added that “persons” had been detained in connection with the incident, local media sources reported.
Police said Sunday morning that the owner of the nightclub had been detained for questioning. They also said 20 suspects were identified, 15 of whom were detained as part of an investigation into the fire.