Love Parade in Germany, A stampede inside a tunnel crowded with techno music fans has left 18 people dead and 80 injured at the famed Love Parade festival in western Germany. The circumstances of the stampede at the famed Love Parade festival were still not clear even hours after the chaos in Duisburg, near Duesseldorf, but it appeared that some or most of the 18 had been crushed to death.
Authorities also suggested that some of the people killed or injured might have attempted to flee the crowd by jumping over a barrier and falling several meters. Witnesses described a desperate scene, as people piled up on each other or scrambled over others who had fallen in the crush.
"The young people came to celebrate and instead there are deaths and injured," German Chancellor Angela Merkel said. "I am horrified by the suffering and the pain." Criticism quickly fell on city officials for allowing only one entrance to the grounds of a hugely popular event that drew hundreds of thousands of people to dance and listen to DJs spin.
German media said 1.4 million people attended but that figure could not be immediately confirmed. The founder of the Love Parade, Matthias Roeingh, known by the name Dr Motte, blasted the planning for the event, saying "one single entrance through a tunnel lends itself to disaster. I am very sad". City officials chose not to evacuate the site, fearing it might spark more panic, and many people continued partying, unaware of the deaths.
Emergency workers had trouble getting to the victims, hampered by the huge crowds. Witness Udo Sandhoefer said that even though no one else was being let in people still streamed into the tunnel, causing "a real mass panic". "At some point the column (of people) got stuck, probably because everything was closed up front, and we saw that the first people were already lying on the ground," he said.
It is the worst accident of its kind since nine people were crushed to death and 43 more were injured at a rock festival in Roskilde, Denmark, in 2000. That fatal accident occurred when a huge crowd pushed forward during a Pearl Jam gig.
