Survivors and families of victims of a deadly nightclub blaze in Rhode Island more than a decade ago said on Saturday that the tragedy in Bucharest was sadly and eerily similar.
The Station fire, one of the deadliest nightclub blazes in US history, was started by pyrotechnics during a concert for the band Great White, killing 100 people and leaving 230 injured.
“It’s so very similar. It makes me sad,” said Claire Bruyere of Warwick, whose 27-year-old daughter Bonnie Hamelin died in the 2003 Station nightclub fire in West Warwick. “I don’t even want to think about it too long.”
Photo: AP
Similarly, the blaze on Friday last week at nightclub Colectiv in Bucharest was sparked by pyrotechnics that were part of a heavy metal band’s performance. The fast-moving fire and ensuing stampede at the show by metal band Goodbye to Gravity claimed the lives of at least 27 people and injured 180 others.
“This makes me sick,” Victoria Eagan of West Warwick, a Station fire survivor, said on Facebook, describing the fires as “eerily similar.”
“Will we never learn?” she wrote as she sent prayers to the Romanian victims and their families.
Others who lost children in the Rhode Island fire said they are disappointed that nightclub owners and concert promoters apparently still ignore basic fire safety regulations and put profit before patrons.
“I just don’t get it. People think this isn’t going to happen to them, but it’s always the same. Nothing has changed,” said Dave Kane of Johnston, Rhode Island, whose 18-year-old son Nicholas O’Neill perished in the Station fire.
Survivors also pointed to other deadly nightclub fires in recent years, including a 2013 blaze that killed more than 200 people and injured about 600 others in the city of Santa Maria in southern Brazil.
Chris Fontaine of Johnston, the mother of 22-year-old Station fire victim Mark Fontaine, said she tries not to become too caught up in the latest tragedies because of the painful memories they inevitably trigger.
“It still feels like yesterday,” she said. “And these things always bring it back to the forefront.”
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