15 killed in mass panic at Germany's Love Parade

[Scurrilous]

<snip>

"A stampede inside a tunnel crowded with techno music fans crushed 15 people to death and injured dozens at Germany's famed Love Parade festival on Saturday.

Thousands of other revelers keep partying at the event in Duisburg, near Duesseldorf, unaware of the deadly stampede that started when police tried to block thousands more people from entering the already-jammed parade grounds.

Police are still trying to determine exactly what happened, but the situation was "very chaotic," police commissioner Juergen Kieskemper said.

He said police closed off the area where the parade was being held because it was already overcrowded. They told revelers over loudspeakers to turn around and walk back in the other direction before the panic broke out, he said.

German news agency DAPD reported the victims were crushed in the large tunnel leading to the event site and that emergency workers had trouble getting to them."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38393674

[marmar]

1. I thought the Love Parade took place in Berlin?

nt

[Scurrilous]

2. It moved out of Berlin in 2007.

From wikipedia:

"The Love Parade 2007 was planned for July 7, 2007 in Berlin. However, the Berlin event was cancelled in February as the Senate of Berlin had not issued the necessary permissions at that time. After negotiations with several German cities, on July 21, it was announced that the Love Parade would move to the Ruhr Area for the next five years. The first event took place in Essen on August 25. The Parade in Essen saw 1.2 million visitors in comparison to the 500,000 who attended the 2006 parade in Berlin.

In 2008, the festival took place in Dortmund on July 19 on the Bundesstraße 1 under the motto Highway of Love. The event was planned as a "Love Weekend", with parties throughout the region. For the first time the Turkish electronic scene was represented by an own float "Turkish Delights (music project)". The official estimate is that 1.6 million visitors attended, which makes it the largest Loveparade to date.

The next parades are planned to take place in Bochum, Gelsenkirchen and Duisburg."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_Parade

[marmar]

3. Thanks for the info......

nt

[JVS]

4. IIRC the Berlin city government was annoyed at the amount of urine and feces that the love parade...

deposited in the city's Tiergarten (a large park to the West of the Brandenburg gate.

[marmar]

5. I've been to the Tiergarten.

[slampoet]

6. Same sort of thing happened in a tunnel in Mecca during the Haj a while back.

Crowds and tunnels just aren't good ideas.

[underpants]

7. 18 killed amid panic at Germany's 'Love Parade'

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/07/24/germany.panic.deaths/index.html?eref=mrss_igoogle_cnn