Officials explain German festival stampede
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Authorities of the western German city of Duisburg faced tough questions but offered few answers on Sunday for a Saturday festival stampede that killed at least 19 people.
![A crowd of revellers is pictured outside a tunnel at the Love Parade 'The art of Love' in the western German city of Duisburg July 24, 2010.[Xinhua]](http://images.china.cn/attachement/jpg/site1007/20100726/000cf1bdd03f0db7260d37.jpg "A crowd of revellers is pictured outside a tunnel at the Love Parade 'The art of Love' in the western German city of Duisburg July 24, 2010.[Xinhua]") |
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A crowd of revellers is pictured outside a tunnel at the Love Parade "The art of Love" in the western German city of Duisburg July 24, 2010.[Xinhua] |
"I can't dress up my grief with words. This misfortune is so appalling that it can't be described with words," Duisburg Mayor Adolf Sauerland told reporters, who were crowded in a meeting room for a press conference at Sunday noon.
The city's Love Parade, a giant electric music festival, witnessed a serious stampede Saturday that killed at least 19 people and injured more than 300 others.
The panic broke out shortly after 5 p.m. on Saturday as music fans were climbing up fences and walls to leave an overcrowded tunnel, which was under a motorway and led to the main stage of the parade and open-door party.
Witnesses said some people fell from the fences and then were scrambled over, causing more people on the ground to be crushed, as thousands of them were piling up in a narrow ramp and pushing each other.
Police said at the press conference that people were trampled to death at an access ramp connecting the tunnel to the main sites, not in the tunnel as previously believed.
Acting Police Chief of Duisburg Detlef Von Schmeling said that two criminal reports related to the incident were under investigation, and the police did open a second access ramp before the stampede to relieve the pressure around the tunnel.
However, doubts were raised on whether the authorities have been well prepared for organizing such a large-scale festival.
According to media estimation, the main stage, an old train station area, could contain 250,000 to 500,000 people at most. However, organizers said more than 1 million people have rushed into the city, whose population is just 500,000, to attend the annual festival.
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