The day they died – Romanian communication & events industry in mourning
Romanian communication & events industry is in mourning for three days and prepares to be close to the families who will bury their loved ones who were killed unfairly in a fire that started in a Bucharest club Friday night.
Until now, the fire from Bucharest’s Colectiv club claimed the lives of 31 people and sent another over 150 to hospitals, with many still in critical state and low chances of survival and others in a somewhat better condition, but with injuries that would cause a lot of pain and require a lot of work to heal.
We want to present our condolences to the families of those who died and we are sad to count among them three that belonged to the communication & events guilds: Monica Tanasoiu, Tina Florea and Adrian Rugina.
Monica Tanasoiu (her Facebook profile vanished with no trace already) loved life, cats and told savory stories about the adventures she and her significant one lived every day. She was Strategy & Innovation Director at Hippos and, previous to that, she worked for other coveted Romanian agencies like Saatchi&Saatchi, Scala JWT, Mercury360, Men in Black and Brandient.
Romanian IQAds published an article in memoriam in which her friends and work colleagues bring her an homage a short time after she died.
Tina Florea had communication and digital in her blood, along with being fun and nice. Tina worked for a few Romanian agencies during her career on Romanian advertising industry, among which MakeSense, Pastel, GreenPixel, Kaleidoscope Proximity, Kinecto and WebTailors.
Adrian Rugina, with expertize in organizing music events, is also among the ones that are gone. Adi survived the disaster, but went back in to save lives and eventually lost his. Him and another savior, Claudiu Petre, received recognition by being rewarded post-mortem Romania’s top honors in terms of medals via a decree signed by the Romanian president.
Background info:
The fire at Colectiv club in Bucharest broke out at about 22.30 local time (21:30 GMT) on Friday. At that time, the club was was hosting a free rock concert by the band Goodbye to Gravity and around 400 people were inside. According to survivors, some fireworks used during the show caused the ceiling and a pillar to catch fire and produced heavy smoke.
A stampede for the only existing exit followed. After the fire, 31 people died until Monday afternoon and around 130 are treated in Bucharest hospitals, with around 90 in critical and serious state.
On November 2nd, following a prosecutors’ investigation, the three owners of the club were arrested for 24 hours.