Four years since the Colectiv fire
64 people dead, 200 injured, three years of investigations and no prosecution yet...
Ştefan Stoica, 30.10.2019, 13:55
On October 30, 2015, a fireworks show held during a rock concert in the Colectiv club in Bucharest ignited the flammable foam covering the ceiling and the pillars of the overcrowded hall, destroying the lives of hundreds of families. In November 2016, parents of the victims in the Colectiv tragedy filed a criminal complaint against the authorities for the way they handled the emergency intervention on the night of the fire and the medical assistance offered to the victims afterwards, as over 30 of the victims who walked out of the fire alive died later, many of them due to hospital infections. The prosecutors havent completed their investigation on this matter and nobody has been charged yet.
Under the slogan “Corruption kills!”, a protest was held after the fire that led to the demise of the Ponta Cabinet and other officials in the local administration who had authorized the functioning of the night club, although it did not meet the legal safety requirements. Last Friday, an online publication posted on the internet a video recording with the first team of the Inspectorate for Emergency Situations that reached the place of the tragedy. The video of the intervention has only been seen by a handful of higher-rank officers, who decided not to make it public, as it showed chaos, lack of organization and even lack of preoccupation for the victims, a totally different image than the official one presented.
The images show that the firefighters do not give first aid to the victims on the sidewalk, and the wounded are carried with wooden pallets. At one point, Colonel Orlando Schiopu, deputy chief inspector of ISU, nervously gives in and seems to swear at the deceased. Military prosecutors have opened a criminal case for committing the offences of second degree murder, felony assault in the second degree, abuse of office, dereliction of duty, subtraction or destruction of evidence, in relation to the authorities intervention in the fire at the Colectiv club, but also regarding the firefighters hiding of the video images that appeared later in the public space. (Translated by Elena Enache)
