Horrific news coming out of Bucharest, Romania, where a nightclub fire has killed at least 27 people during a performance by local metal band Goodbye to Gravity.
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A victim of a fire at a club, leaves the hospital with injured hands in Bucharest on October 31, 2015.
In one of the worst disasters in the decades, about 400 people mostly young adults stampeded for exit the nightclub on Friday as club filed with the smoke.
The country declared Code Red and authorities are trying to accommodate all the injured in 12 hospitals across Bucharest.
Several eyewitnesses quoted in media reports said a fireworks show in the Colectiv nightclub set fire to a pillar near the stage covered with sound-insulating foam. About 180 people were injured, with a few 50 of them taken to the Floreasca emergency hospital, the ministry said.
Witnesses say pyrotechnics sparked a fire that quickly became a widespread blaze with dark, blinding smoke.
Deputy Interior Minister Raed Arafat said the death toll may still climb at the club, which hosted a rock concert for Halloween attended by up to 400.
Another said people began fainting from the smoke.
One woman inside the club told Romanian TV there was fire “all over the place”, adding: “I saw people changing their mood from happiness to deep panic”.
“I am deeply grieved by the tragic events that happened this evening”, he said in a public statement.
Fireworks and restricted exits have been a lethal combination in many nightclub fires around the world.
Prime Minister Victor Ponta announced that he was cutting short his official visit to Mexico and returning to Bucharest.
Police spent all night in the club investigating the incident and questioning the club’s owners.
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“It is a very sad moment for our nation”, he said on his Facebook page.
