London and Belgrade – It is believed that dozens of people died in a fire in a nightclub in the city of Kocani in southern Macedonia in northern Macedonia, local authorities said on Sunday.
Associated Press reported that 51 people were killed and around 100 more wounded in the incident, citing the comments of Interior Minister Panche Toshkovski to journalists.
A supply operator at the Kocani General Hospital told ABC News: “It’s a catastrophic tragedy.”
They did not provide more information about the number or status of the victims.
Emergency responders operate outside a nightclub, after a fire that resulted in victims, in the city of Kocani, North Macedonia, on March 16, 2025.
Ognien Teofilovski/Reuters
The DNK band manager, which was presented at the nightclub when the fire exploded, told ABC News that the place had a maximum capacity of 500 to 700 people.
The band, which consists of eight members, was acting at the time of the fire and some of them were among the injured, said the manager.
This photograph shows a view of a burnt nightclub in which a fire broke out and killed 51 people in Kocani, a city about 100 kilometers east of the Skopje capital, on March 16, 2025.
Robert Atanasovski/AFP through Getty Images
As more details of the incident arose, the families of the young people who attended the concert, some of them minors, requested information about social networks, shared telephone numbers and personal details with the hope that those who are still missing can be found.
The fire began around 2:35 am, Toshkovski said, saying that the roof of the place was burned by the pyrotechnics used by the clubbers.
Toshkovski said the police arrested a man, but gave no more details.
This is a development story. Consult the updates again.
Somayeh Malekian of ABC News contributed to this report.
