27 people Dead and 162 Injured in Huge Fire Started in a Club in Bucharest

On the Friday evening of October 30th 2015, at 22.32, an 112 emergency call notified about a fire burst in a night club on Tabacarilor street in Bucharest.

According to the dr. Raed Arafat, Head of Emergency Situations Department, at 22.32, three fire trucks with water and foam, one truck with escalator, an extrication truck and one first-aid team, rescuers with the Special Rescuers Team, with a fire truck and a heavy extrication truck, as well as a team with a mobile intensive care medic. At 22.43, all these units arrived on the scene, as well as three other first aid teams and three fire trucks with water and foam. Following the communication, the mobile surgical hospital was also dispatched.

From 22.50 on, the triage started and also the victims’ transportation to the Floreasca Hospital, University Hospital, Burnt Victims Hospital, Grigore Alexandrescu Hospital, St. Pantelimon Hospital, Elias Hospital, Coltea Hospital, Budimex Hospital, Military Hospital and Agripa Ionescu Hospital.

In total, the following authorities were gradually alerted and dispatched:

• The General Emergency Situations Inspectorate (IGSU/ISU BIF): 14 fire trucks, one special escalator truck, two extrication trucks, a heavy extrication truck, three trucks for personal and multiple victims transportation, two mobile surgical hospitals, 32 SMURD ambulances (29 of first aid teams, two mobile intensive care units, one car of the emergency medic), the mobile command post and twenty intervention and command trucks. In total, more than 200 officers and under-officers.
• The Bucharest-Ilfov Ambulance Service – twenty-eight ambulances and 84 medical personnel.
• The Bucharest Police – 70 teams, of which 50 on the scene and twenty on the route.
• The Bucharest Gendarmerie : eleven intervention teams of 45 people.
• The Local Police: two teams of seven agents each.

After having finished the intervention, the area was secured by the Ministry of the Interior in order to allow the district attorneys and the investigation units to undergo an investigation. 163 people were sent to the following hospitals: Floreasca, Burnt Victims Hospital, Elias, Military Hospital, St. Pantelimon, Ilfov County Hospital, St. Ioan, Bagdasar, Municipal Hospital, Coltea, Budimex and Grigore Alexandrescu.

Unfortunately, 27 people died.

The victims’ families can ask for additional information by calling the following phone numbers of the Ministry of the Interior: 021/2069291, 021/3130605, 021/2069283, 021/2648704, 021/2648525, 021/2069375 and 021/3122547.

The CNSSU Review

The vice-prime minister for national security, the minister of the Interior, Gabriel Oprea, summoned, on Sunday morning, October 31st, at the Romanian Government headquarters, the National Committee for Special Emergency Situations (CNSSU), following the huge fire.

At the beginning of the meeting, vice-prime minister Gabriel Oprea expressed a message of solidarity with the mourning families, by expressing his wish that the lives of the wounded could be saved.

At the meeting, reports were given from the authorized institutions as to the case management and the way in which the rescue missions had been conducted.

The manpower of the Ministry of the Interior and the Health Ministry intervened in order to save lives and extinguish the fire. In this mission were dispatched more than 500 people – firefighters, gendarms, policemen and medical personnel.

The rescue teams used 75 intervention trucks of the Bucharest-Ilfov Inspectorate for Emergency Situations, of which eleven with water and foam, three for extrication, three for multiple victims transportation, two mobile surgical hospitals, two escalators, as well as 57 SMURD ambulances. The police and gendarmerie cars were also used to ensure the traffic flow for the ambulances.

Vice-prime minister Gabriel Oprea thanked the firefighters, medics and paramedics, policemen and gendarms who had come to the rescue and acknowledged the solidarity shown by numerous citizens who expressed their intent to help the injured.

CNSSU will propose at the Government meeting, which is to be held today, at 12.30, the enactment by which three days of national mourning should be declared, as of today, October 31st.

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