A deadly stampede at a German music festival (the Love Parade festival in the western city of Duisburg) over the weekend, has raised accusations of negligence aimed at event organizers, politicians and the police, who on Sunday defended their actions in one of the deadliest public events in recent years.
The deadly crush happened in an underpass between the main event site and the expansion area. Witnesses told CNN affiliate NTV that people pushed into the tunnel (200-meter long) from both sides until it was dangerously overcrowded. The panic began as festival-goers began to lose consciousness as they were crushed against the walls and each other. Today the tunnel was closed to the public, but dozens of people had gathered outside it, most of them silent, whispering or sobbing. Some had laid flowers, other had lit candles. There was a white T-shirt propped up by a stick. It read: “19 dead, 360 injured.” Authorities have identified the victims as 11 women and eight men. Eleven of the victims are from Germany and the remaining eight hail from Australia, the Netherlands, China, Italy, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Spain.
There were 5,000 police officers to handle security at the event
The chaos began in the late afternoon as the exit from the tunnel was closed by the police, who cited safety reasons; there were already 1.4 million people on the site.
The entrance to the Love Parade itself, apparently the only such entrance, had been sealed beyond the tunnel exit to prevent further congestion on the festival grounds.
After the tunnel exit was closed, the crowds inside panicked. They could not turn back because the tunnel behind them was still packed thick with people trying to get in.
To compound the problem, revelers inside the festival, told by loudspeakers to exit, piled into the tunnel, causing even more congestion and panic. Detlef von Schmeling, police president of Duisburg, said 16 of the dead did not die in the tunnel, but at the entrance ramp.
Rainer Schaller, organizer of the Duisburg event, said the Love Parade, which features the world’s top D.J.’s, would never be held again.
“The Love Parade was always a peaceful event and a happy party” but would now be overshadowed by what happened on Saturday, he said a news conference. “It’s all over for the Love Parade.”
The original Berlin Love Parade grew from a 1989 peace demonstration into a huge outdoor celebration of club culture that drew about 1.5 million people at its peak in 1999. But it suffered from financial problems and tensions with city officials in later years, and eventually moved to Ruhr region since 2007.
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