Public grief and rage in the disco club fire's aftermath


Maria Ion, age 38, a widow and mother of five, was buried today in Bucharest, killed in Friday night's fire at Club Colectiv where she worked occasionally as a cleaning lady.


Two of Maria Ion's children, 15-year-old Denise and 11-year-old Alexandra, posed next to her coffin after they had requested a souvenir picture with their mother inside the family home they had shared in Bucharest.


Nearly 20,000 citizens assembled tonight in downtown Bucharest to demand the resignations of Prime Minister Victor Ponta, Interior Minister Gabriel Opera, and the Mayor of the District in Bucharest where Club Colectiv was located.


The Romanian Orthodox Christian Church also was criticized for failing to address the national outpouring of grief after Friday's nightclub fire, as four days had elapsed before the first priests went to the disaster site to say prayers and light candles. But Patriarch Daniel, who heads the Church, said the church is being picked on: "There is always hostility toward the church, which is very hard to understand," he reportedly remarked.


Romania's President Klaus Iohannis had visited the site on the day after the fire and had laid a wreath. Prime Minister Victor Ponta announced that Romania will accept aid from medical burn specialists at hospitals in other countries, and he said that an emergency ordinance will be introduced in parliament to empower fire marshals to close nightclubs or other businesses which they deem to be operating unsafely.


Some 130 people remain hospitalized from their fire injuries, the media in Romania reported today.


Prime Minister Victor Ponta, who had returned promptly from a meeting in Mexico, announced that Romania will accept aid from medical burn specialists at hospitals in other countries, and that an emergency ordinance will be introduced in parliament to empower fire marshals to close nightclubs or other businesses which they deem to be operating unsafely.


Costin Mincu, one of the three coowners of Club Colectiv, waits in handcuffs in a police car, arrested on charges of negligence and manslaughter.


Interior Minister Gabriel Opera was already under fire from media and citizens for an earlier tragedy in which a motorcycle policeman who was leading Opera's motorcade fell to his death in an open and unmarked street pavement excavation and Opera had failed to stop, saying several days later that he had not been aware of that officer's accident. The incident touched a public nerve when the media disclosed that Opera had used a government-funded motorcade on 1500 occasions this year.


A photo of the scene at tonight's anti-government street demonstration in Bucharest.

ALLAN CRUSE
03 NOV 2015