As families of victims mourned the loss of loved ones and kept an anxious vigil in hospitals on Monday, the authorities in North Macedonia said they were investigating possible official misconduct in the case of a deadly inferno that killed at least 59 people over the weekend.
Officials said that Club Pulse, the nightclub where the fire broke out early Sunday, was operating with an illegally issued license document, and that it lacked proper escape routes. The building’s roof was set ablaze by fireworks used during a concert, officials have said. At least 155 people were injured in the inferno that swept through the venue.
The building was registered as an industrial facility — not a hospitality venue — but had still received a hospitality permit from the economy ministry, the public prosecutor, Ljupco Kocevski, said on Sunday.
The police summoned a former minister of the economy, Kreshnik Bekteshi, for questioning, according to MIA, a state-run news agency. Mr. Bekteshi did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Officers also detained another former official from the ministry, as well as other officials in other government agencies.
“I will have no mercy,” Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski said in a national address on Sunday, adding, “There is no person in Macedonia who is not broken and with a destroyed spirit after this.”
Mr. Mickoski, who took power in June, said that the club, which was in Kocani, a town about 50 miles east of the capital, Skopje, had a license document that had been issued in March last year “for a bribe.”
He said the document bore the seal of the economic ministry and the signatures of former officials there, and that it was “issued illegally.” It was not immediately clear if the signatures were from the officials who had been detained.
“This is the culmination of a bad, neglected system,” Mr. Mickoski said, describing the effort to root out corruption.
Families of victims were making funeral arrangements on Monday.
Others were keeping up anxious vigils at the hospitals where teenagers and young adults injured in the fire were receiving care.
“A lot of children have suffered,” Simeon Sokolov, whose daughter was on a respirator after inhaling smoke, told the Serbian television channel N1 on Sunday night.
“The doctors are doing all they can,” Mr. Sokolov added, “but there are too many injured.”
Mr. Kocevski, the public prosecutor, told reporters that the club was unprepared for a fire and that pyrotechnic devices “used illegally” appeared to have ignited the inferno, setting off a stampede.
There were no side doors for evacuation, he said: “Instead, there was only one improvised metal door at the back, which was blocked from the inside.”
The nightclub did not have a hydrant network or a functioning hydrant, he added. There were only two fire extinguishers, which he said was not enough for the size of the space.
One woman, identified by the BBC as Marija Taseva, told the broadcaster that the people inside the club had started screaming as the fire broke out, and pressed toward the exit. “‘Get out, get out!’” Ms. Taseva said, remembering the cries.
As she started rushing toward the exit, she said she fell, and could not get up.
“People started stomping on me,” she said.
She survived the club fire. Her sister, who was with her, did not, she said.
“I was saved,” she said, crying, “and she wasn’t.”
Jon Hazell contributed reporting.