Hip-hop Gig Blaze Kills 51 At North Macedonia Nightclub

The fire broke out aound 3am, as the nightclub was packed with more than 1,000 people to see a hip-hop duo perform (Credit: AFP)

A fire tore through a nightclub in North Macedonia early Sunday, killing 51 people, apparently after on-stage fireworks set the place ablaze, the country's interior minister said.

More than 100 people were injured in the fire in the Club Pulse in the eastern town of Kocani, with some taken by helicopter to hospitals and clinics in the capital Skopje, some 50 kilometres (30 miles) away by air, Interior Minister Pance Toskovski said.