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Another injured dies at Bagdasar-Arseni hospital; death toll at 54
Four more people have died from injuries sustained in a nightclub blaze that toppled Romania's government, bringing the toll to 54, doctors said Thursday.
The bassist from local hard rock group Goodbye to Gravity, which was performing in the Colectiv nightclub when the October 30 fire erupted, died on Wednesday night after he was transferred to France for treatment.
Three more died in hospitals in the Romanian capital Bucharest.
Another 66 people are still hospitalised, a dozen of whom are in critical condition.
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State Secretary with the Interior Ministry (MAI) Raed Arafat told a debate on Wednesday evening that there was not any mistake with the intervention in the October 30 fire at Colectiv nightclub in Bucharest, or with the management of the problems at hospitals, but it was with "those who point an accusing finger without having information."
"Let us take the intervention - no mistake; let us that the management at hospitals - no mistake in a disaster scenario and this was a disaster case. The mistake was with those pointing an accusing finger everywhere without having complete information. Everybody is entitled to accuse. Instead of getting united in doing something, we in Romania have set up two camps and started pointing fingers. That was the biggest mistake. Any similar emergency in the future might lead to a lack of reaction. I already see some of my colleagues refusing to get involved in decision making, going to the scene or conducting investigations," said Arafat.
He warned that accusations should not be made during interventions or based on information circulated by nobody knows who.
"There were tens of pieces of information circulated back then and nobody knows who started them, the same as in the case with the alleged concealment of dead bodies," said Arafat.
He added that the foreign medical teams that have come to Romania said some of the injured survivors are not transferrable. "We are waiting for some of them to get stabilised to be transferred," he said.
About the civil protection mechanism of the European Commission, Arafat said talks have been on with the body since Tuesday.
Arafat said the US has also said it is ready to receive injured to their hospitals, but that is not feasible because of the long distance from Romania to the US. "I cannot board patients on a plane for 12,13 or 14 hours," doctor Arafat said.