19 Dead At German Techno Festival, The 2010 Love Parade

At least 19 people have died at the 2010 Love Parade in Duisburg, Germany.

The tragedy struck at the annual celebration of love, unification and techno music when a stampede broke out in a tunnel leading to the main area of the festival on Saturday. Authorities had been trying to stop people from entering the over-crowded area.

“There was no escape,” one techno fan said on the Web site of the German newspaper Bild. “People were pressed into the wall. I was afraid I’d die.”

Estimates of the crowd attending the event were 1.4 million people.

Read more at BBC, NYDaily News

13 thoughts on “19 Dead At German Techno Festival, The 2010 Love Parade

  1. It was the tunnel.

    Crowds and tunnels don't mix. There was a similar tunnel crowd panic at the Holy City of Mecca during the Haj a few years back. Similar tunnel no escape situation.

  2. Basically a very grave mistake on the part of the organizers. Organizing something this big means also keeping these kinds of situations in mind, especially when you're dealing with big crowds.

    Still, it once again goes to show you; whenever you go to a concert or a restaurant or wherever. *always* look around to see if things look safe to you, do not rely on "the guys who organized it". Meaning; as commented above; this isn't the first time accidents happened in tunnels with bigger crowds. I don't mind waiting in line, but if I see that I'm starting to become "locked up" in a huge mass from which there is hardly any escape (like in a tunnel) then I'm getting out of there.

  3. It was not the tunnel itself that was the reason so many died. It was because that so many people tried to escape via a stair instead. People got squashed, and some fell over the edge – down on other people. You can see the picture in this article. It is in Danish however. Short resumé: 14 got stamped or squashed to death, while the other five died other places, and at the hospital.
    http://ekstrabladet.dk/112/article1381610.ece

    RIP

  4. the Love&Peace crowd should have shown a little more…ummm…LOVE&PEACE..
    patience amongst the LOVE&PEACE crowd could have prevented the loss of lives.

  5. Ask yourself this: /why/ did they try to escape via the stairs? Because the tunnels exit (the only way out) was blocked by a huge crowd.

  6. You wrote earlier INSIDE the tunnel. So i give you the info that people did not die inside the tunnel; but at the staircase area. Thereby not inside the tunnel.

    But as long as you can agree with yourself, then all is good.

  7. It wasn't the fact that there wasn't any love and peace that caused this drama. The festival terrain itself could only accommodate around 250.000 people safely. Yet the organization failed to manage the crowds as the estimated highest number of people attending was set around 1.4 million. Which is nearly six times as much.

    The terrain itself was a big arena with only one way in and out, a 20 mtr. wide tunnel. Tenths of thousands of people were trying to get into the area, when the first people started to leave again, all through the same tunnel with no separated passages. As the crowds a the entrance couldn't go in, the people in the back of the line started to push forward.

    Seeing those huge crowds, in confined spaces, like the tunnel is asking for a lot of trouble. Lack of oxygen, people fainting and starting to panic as they couldn't move.

    The only ones to blame for this disaster are the organizers who have taken huge risks. One of the comments has been that they didn't anticipate these numbers of visitors. Strangly when the Loveparade was still hosted in Berlin (6x visitor) the numbers reach 1 million in various years. So I personally would've expected these numbers.

    I hope those responsible will be punished for their grave mistakes. And my sympathy goes out to all those that have suffered in this tragedy.

  8. As much as the organizers were to blame for choosing a bad site, the reports further note that local police decided to close the the tunnel exit inside the grounds without bothering to close the tunnel entrance outside where crowds of people were still pouring in with nowhere to exit.

  9. Yes – the organizers should be held responsible.

    But I read that they had to move away from Berlin – where they had open boulevards – because they couldn't get permits. Was Berlin scared that the festival was too big?

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