He said the number of people inside the club was at least double its official capacity of 250.
“We have grounds for suspicion that there is bribery and corruption in this case,” he told reporters without elaborating.
An aerial photograph shows the damaged roof of a nightclub in the town of Kocani, North Macedonia.Credit: AP
Condolences poured in from leaders around Europe, as well as from the office of Pope Francis, who has been hospitalised for a month for double pneumonia.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky also sent messages of support. “I wish those who were injured a speedy recovery. Ukraine mourns alongside our [North] Macedonian friends on this sad day,” Zelensky wrote in a post on X.
Health Ministry officials said the government had accepted offers of assistance from several neighbouring countries, including Bulgaria, Greece, Serbia and Turkey, where preparations were being made to receive patients with life-threatening injuries.
In the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki, three people with severe burns aged 25, 25 and 19 were in critical condition, being treated at a civilian hospital, with one undergoing surgery, health authorities said.
Throughout Sunday, relatives gathered in front of hospitals and city offices in Kocani, about 115 kilometres east of the capital, Skopje, begging authorities for more information.
Resident Dragi Stojanov was informed that his 21-year-old son, Tomce, had died in the fire.
“He was my only child. I don’t need my life any more … 150 families have been devastated,” he said. “Children burnt beyond recognition. There are corpses, just corpses inside.”
In Skopje, officials said the injured were sent to hospitals around the country, many being treated for severe burns and smoke inhalation. Multiple volunteer organisations were assisting the effort.
Police officers outside the Club Pulse nightclub on Sunday,Credit: AP
President Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova visited burn victims at a hospital in Skopje and spoke to parents waiting outside.
“It’s terrible … hard to believe how this happened,” she said, her voice halting with emotion. “We must give these young people the courage to continue.”
The fire caused the roof of the single-storey building to partially collapse, revealing the charred remains of wooden beams and debris. Police cordoned off the site and sent in evidence-gathering teams in an operation also involving state prosecutors.
The government ordered a sweeping inspection to be carried out at all nightclubs and cabarets across the country over the next three days.
Pyrotechnics have often been the cause of deadly fires in nightclubs, including one at the Colectiv club in Bucharest, Romania, in 2015, in which 64 people died. Thirteen people were killed when a fire tore through a crowded nightclub in the Russian city of Kostroma in 2022. The blaze started after a man shot a flare gun at the ceiling, the TASS news agency said at the time.
AP
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