A whole town in mourning

The injured were sheltered by neighbours until help arrived

The town of Volendam in the Netherlands is in mourning after an horrific fire turned a New Year's Eve party into a night of terror. Volendam resident Ronald Tiebout tells BBC News Online how the town is trying to cope with the disaster - and how the tragedy has left no-one untouched.

Volendam is a town with just 20,000 residents. We are one big family.

If you look into the telephone book, you can see there are only a few different surnames. All the boys and girls who get married stay in Volendam.

Neighbours took people into their homes to put in the bath and under the shower while they waited for help

So all our families have grandparents, cousins, nephews, nieces, brothers and sisters living in Volendam.

That is why so many people are involved in this tragedy. Everybody knows everybody.

On the night of the fire, families went in total panic to the scene of the fire, to see if they could find their relatives.

A good friend of mine who lives in the same street told me he had seen boys and girls outside with terrible burns all over their bodies.

Volendam was a fairytale town until tragedy struck

There was horrible screaming when it happened, and a lot of people were running away, because they could not face it.

I have just heard there was one boy who was not in the bar at the time of the fire, but he went in, and brought 13 people out, but then lost his life trying to save more.

All the neighbours were helping by bringing water.

Twenty-four hours after the fire there were still parents who didn't know where their daughters and sons had been taken

They took people into their homes to put them in the bath and under the shower while they waited for help.

My father-in-law, who has a taxi company in Volendam, told me he had a lot of crying people in his cab all night long. Families were looking for each other.

Injured people were taken to several hospitals - even in Germany and Belgium - and 24 hours after the fire there were still parents who didn't know where their daughters and sons had been taken.

Now many people are looking for support from each other, and we are also receiving much help from our churches.

Ronald Tiebout runs a website in Volendam. He works for a Dutch airline.