Death Toll From Bucharest Nightclub Fire Rises

The toll from a horrific nightclub fire in Bucharest that brought down the Romanian government has risen to 41.

Romanian media criticized the authorities for failing to transfer a few of the wounded to hospitals overseas in time.

Gandul daily wrote, adding that the country’s hospitals were struggling to treat more than 140 people wounded in the October 30 tragedy at the Colectiv nightclub.

The fire sparked mass anti-government protests, with many viewing compromised safety standards at the club as emblematic of Romania’s wider problem with rampant corruption.

The fire broke out last Friday night at a concert at the Colectiv, when fireworks set insulation foam alight and triggered a stampede towards the venue’s only exit.

Tens of thousands of people subsequently took to the streets across Romania, angry at a public administration widely seen as corrupt, and the protests continued even after the cabinet resigned.

Adrian Stanculea, spokesman for the state burns hospital, said three men died there, while University Hospital said a man there died.

Late Saturday, a couple of thousand protesters gathered in Bucharest for the fifth consecutive evening, waving Romanian flags and calling for better governance and an end to corruption.

Raed Arafat, an emergency situations official, said two patients who had been sent to the Netherlands for specialized burns treatment had died, including a 20-year-old Italian woman who was a student in Romania.

“We are here to show them we don’t want things to continue the same way – for a few politicians to leave and then the same to come back”, one demonstrator told EuroNews. “Another banner carried the hashtag “#corruptionkills”.

Romanian anti-corruption prosecutors have arrested a former mayor over a nightclub fire that killed 38 people in Bucharest.

They stood in near silence. Many sobbed quietly, others hugged each other as they stood, crouched or kneeled in front of a sea of flickering candles paying tribute to the dead. Church bells rang out for several minutes to commemorate the dead.