As 500,000 people gathered in Duisburg, Germany for the Love Parade Festival on Saturday, a mass stampede killed 15 people and left 40 injured.
A state of emergency was declared as several techno music fans were trampled to death in a tunnel connecting a railway goods yard to the concert grounds.
Concertgoer Karl Lowenstein said:
“It was hell. The tunnel was dark, it was full. Something happened – whether someone tripped or someone fell I don’t know. But there was a stampede to get to the other end and those who fell… well, many of them never got up again.
A friend and I got out as hundreds more poured in. We tried to tell them to close it down, but they didn’t listen. This was about 45 minutes before people were killed.”
Medical workers were even having trouble getting to the wounded because of the thousands of meandering people standing the the way.
Another witness said:
“I have never seen anything like it. I saw 25 people piled on top of one another, a huge heap. I cried.
The people couldn’t get any air. I saw the dead there. One person was completely pale and I wanted to give him some water but a medic said that wouldn’t help him – he was already gone. I saw police on the bridge just standing there and they didn’t do anything.”
So sad.