Romania's government declared a three-day period of national mourning beginning Saturday hours after a heavy metal concert at a Bucharest nightclub ended with a tragic fire and stampede, leaving at least 27 people dead and nearly 200 injured.
Victor Ponta, Romania's prime minister, called for a period of mourning as well as a full investigation into the tragedy, unprecedented in its scale in the country, which is said to have been caused by the band's pyrotechnics and the Colectiv Club's inadequate exits.
"At this point we have to show respect for the dead, to understand how it happened and what we can do in the future to avoid such tragic events," Ponta wrote in a Facebook post on Saturday.
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While the government weighed next steps, hundreds of Romanian citizens flocked to hospitals and blood donation centers, lining up to give blood to the many club casualties in need of transfusions.
Many more from inside and outside the country took to Facebook and Twitter to mourn the loss and call for much-needed blood donations.
Tragic night in Bucharest #colectiv R.I.P pic.twitter.com/7FavIE8K0O— Teodora Costea (@TeodoraCostea) October 31, 2015