The organizer of Love Parade, the massive annual German techno festival, says that the event has been canceled permanently after 19 people were killed and 342 were injured during a mass panic that resulted in a flood of people crushing each other. The incident appears to have been a result of the fact that authorities tried to funnel hundreds of thousands of people under a single highway overpass.
The exact sequence of events that led to the panic is unclear at this time. Authorities are facing tough questions about what happened and nobody seems to be able to provide an explanation. The Telegraph has more details and video of the aftermath.
Too bad. I’ve gone to the one in SF several times.
I live pretty close to this event (though I’m from Holland, not Germany) and some of my friends were there. Safe to say it was a horrifying experience for them and a really bad way to end a great party. People were literally climbing over eachother to get away from the crowd, climbing on everything they could grab onto (that’s how several fell to their deaths and the whole mass panic started according to the police reports)
Sources are saying that 1 to 1.4 million people wanted to attend (which would’ve been fine if they’d kept the festival in Berlin like previous years), while the location in Duisburg could hold 500.000 people max.
There’s a lot of criticism floating around that security measures weren’t taken, though management claims there were such measures and supposedly a second exit/entrance had already been opened (too little too late though)
I’m really glad none of my friends were hurt though, even if they really got a good scare.. Also, I will say this for the German authorities and care services: They were really professional and efficient in dealing with the aftermath. Really good work from them.