WEST WARWICK, R.I. (AP) – Survivors and families of victims of a deadly nightclub blaze in Rhode Island over a decade ago said Saturday the tragedy in Bucharest, Romania, was sadly and eerily similar.
“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.”
The Station fire, one of the deadliest nightclub blazes in U.S. history, was started by pyrotechnics during a concert for the band Great White. One-hundred people were killed and 230 were injured.
Similarly, the Friday blaze at the Colectiv nightclub 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 Goodbye to Gravity metal band’s show 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 in Facebook posts describing the fires as “eerily similar.”