Deadly Nightclub Fire in North Macedonia Kills 59

A dev­as­tat­ing fire tore through the Club Pulse night­club in Kočani, North Mace­do­nia, in the ear­ly hours of Sun­day, March 16, 2025, killing 59 peo­ple and injur­ing at least 155 oth­ers. Author­i­ties believe the fire start­ed around 2:30 AM dur­ing a con­cert by a local pop group, with ear­ly reports sug­gest­ing that pyrotech­nics used dur­ing the per­for­mance may have ignit­ed the venue’s roof.

Chaos and Tragedy

Wit­ness­es described scenes of chaos as thick smoke and flames spread rapid­ly through the club, trap­ping many inside. Videos shared on social media showed young peo­ple des­per­ate­ly try­ing to escape through smoke-filled exits. Emer­gency respon­ders arrived quick­ly, but the inten­si­ty of the fire made res­cue oper­a­tions extreme­ly dif­fi­cult.

Investigation and Arrests

Fol­low­ing the tragedy, the North Mace­don­ian gov­ern­ment launched an inves­ti­ga­tion into the club’s safe­ty stan­dards and pos­si­ble reg­u­la­to­ry vio­la­tions. At least 20 indi­vid­u­als, includ­ing gov­ern­ment offi­cials and night­club man­age­ment, have been arrest­ed. They are sus­pect­ed of neg­li­gence, with reports indi­cat­ing that the club may not have met fire safe­ty reg­u­la­tions or had inad­e­quate emer­gency exits【9】.

Government Response and Mourning

Inte­ri­or Min­is­ter Panche Toshkovs­ki con­firmed that 39 of the deceased had been iden­ti­fied so far. The North Mace­don­ian gov­ern­ment declared a nation­al day of mourn­ing, with flags flown at half-mast and pub­lic events can­celed in trib­ute to the victims【8】.

This inci­dent is being com­pared to oth­er night­club dis­as­ters caused by unsafe con­di­tions and inad­e­quate fire pre­ven­tion mea­sures. Author­i­ties have promised to hold those respon­si­ble account­able while review­ing fire safe­ty reg­u­la­tions across enter­tain­ment venues nation­wide.

For fur­ther details, vis­it Euronews and LBC.