This photograph shows a view of the burnt down nightclub inside which a fire broke out and killed 59 people in North Macedonia on Sunday. (Photo: AFP)
March 19, 2025
A deadly warning from North Macedonia
IT didn’t happen in Miami or New York, neither was it in our Caribbean region, Britain, or Canada, so for many Jamaicans Sunday’s fire at a nightclub in the Republic of North Macedonia, in south-east Europe, which left 59 people dead and more than 150 injured, was of little note.
However, we believe that fire has many lessons which Jamaicans would be foolish to ignore.
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According to the country’s Interior Minister Pance Toskovski, the company operating Club Pulse, where the fire broke out early Sunday, “does not have a legal licence for work”.
“This licence, as many other things in Macedonia in the past, is connected with bribery and corruption,” he said at a press conference in Kocani, a small town in the east of the Balkan country.
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Additionally, the prosecutor’s office said, the club had breached numerous fire regulations, including having insufficient extinguishers and emergency exits.
Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski said on Sunday that the club had a licence document that bore the seal of the economy ministry and the signatures of former officials there, but it was “issued illegally”.
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The building that housed Club Pulse, we are told, was registered as an industrial facility — not a hospitality venue — but had still received a hospitality permit from the economy ministry.
According to Government officials in North Macedonia, “This was a tragedy caused by bribery and corruption.”
This catastrophe, we believe, serves as a wake-up call for us, because for too many Jamaicans — from all walks of life — bribery and corruption have become systemic.
Let’s consider that there are people who never even had a driving lesson, let alone passed the driving exam, but are in possession of a valid driver’s licence. To make matters worse, some of those individuals are barely able to read.
Add to that, many motor vehicles are being operated on our streets with valid fitness certificates, despite having never seen the inside of an examination depot.
People with government contracts cut corners to increase their profits, while developers get a “bly” when they submit one building plan to the municipal authorities but build something else without the required safety features.
While Jamaica has not experienced a nightclub fire disaster of the scale of that in North Macedonia, we have seen a few such tragedies in the past. One that comes readily to mind was the blaze at Landmark Nightclub in Trinity, Port Maria, in 2018 that claimed the lives of three women.
At the time there was speculation that the fire was deliberately set, but even if that were not so it is not unusual for tight, compact spaces to be used as nightclubs. In fact, we recall in November 2016 a senior firefighter warning Jamaicans that many such entertainment venues are fire hazards as entrances are also exits. People are putting their lives at risk when they attend events in such buildings, the firefighter said.
We know the fire brigade has strict regulations in relation to building safety and is keen on saving lives and property. Our question, though: Are those regulations being consistently enforced? If they are, we say bravo, but if they are not, the authorities need to lace up and ensure building owners and business operators are compliant.
The tragedy in North Macedonia should serve as a warning for us all. As the old saying goes, “Tek sleep mark death.”
