19 people dead in mass panic at Love Parade

The Love Parade -I'm sure most people have heard of it- started out as an actual parade, a combination birthday party/ peace protest on the streets of Berlin. For some reason or another, eventually neither the founders nor the city felt like continuing it, so it became a commercial event in various places.
This year, it was in Duisburg. It was also probably the last Love Parade.

The story is short and simple: There was only one entrance/exit tunnel to grounds which were supposed to see over a million people that day. Said tunnel is 16m wide, that's 17.5 yards. The actual entrance was once you passed the tunnel, where people were being searched by security, meaning everybody and their dog piled in on one end and nobody really made it out the other side.

People -especially people who frequent this kind of event- have been calling it a trap for weeks. And lo and behold, mass panic. Have some footage and stuff.


Spiegel Online:

Quote :

The deaths took place as partygoers were pushing through a highway underpass leading to the festival grounds, the only entrance to the party for the 1.4 million people in attendance. According to some accounts, organizers at one point closed the entrance to the party venue, a former freight train station, for an hour but did not prevent more people from streaming into the tunnel. The resulting crush of people fueled both tempers and the resulting panic.

According to a police spokesman on Sunday, most of the deaths occurred when revellers broke through a barricade and began climbing up a steep staircase near the tunnel entrance in an effort to gain access to the party grounds. Many of them fell off, which triggered a panic in the masses down below.

In short, first this:

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then this:

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and eventually, this:




At 1:15, what the kid in the green shirt says to the sooty girl with the shock-like dreamy smile is, "she's dead."

Yeah, this in the Metro today. Terrible stuff, and could have been so easily avoided.

This is why love is bad.

If you idiots could learn to perpetually dislike everyone around you like The Superior Race (Amerifats) do, you could manage to only kill people during blood rivarly sports competitions.

I mean, you already tend to do that. But then you try to spread around love and peace and goodwill. What part of that doesn't sound like it'll end horribly?

Edit: I MISS THE ATTACK EGG [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

ó___ò

I'm speechless. Duisburg isn't entirely far from my village.
19? 19?!

Got another link? The user has removed that video.

TRAMPLED TO DEATH AND YOU'RE TO BLAME
YOU GIVE LOVE A BAD NAME

rae wrote:

Got another link? The user has removed that video.

This is some of the same footage, minus dead people (which may be the reason why the other one was removed):




This one gives you a good idea of the tunnel and the sheer amount of people:

Oh god, I feel sick with horror at that.

It was stupid to have over a million people passing through that tunnel. Didn't anybody in charge see that many people would get irritable and SOMETHING bad was bound to happen with so many packed together?

By about halfway through the video above, one could see the man was looking back and exit was difficult if not impossible. Thirty seconds on and the noise was appalling. Is it any surprise panic ensued?

And damn, I wanted to see the one with the dead people.

How did the event planner not know something like this will happen?

Harley Quinn hyenaholic wrote:

And damn, I wanted to see the one with the dead people.

If you want to see it that badly, I can upload it to 4shared for you (I normally download videos I suspect will be removed eventually, as I did with the 'Cop slaps obnoxious lady' one).

XLT-100852.0 wrote:

How did the event planner not know something like this will happen?

From the way Grumbles describes it, it doesn't sound like anyone really had anything planned; especially after the original venue fell through. I think it's a case of everyone assuming someone else was in charge, when in reality, no one was.

It seems this year is the last Love Parade ever.

Rabid Badger wrote:

XLT-100852.0 wrote:

How did the event planner not know something like this will happen?

From the way Grumbles describes it, it doesn't sound like anyone really had anything planned; especially after the original venue fell through. I think it's a case of everyone assuming someone else was in charge, when in reality, no one was.

There was a lot of going on afterwards, yeah. Some things are starting to emerge, though: mostly that it was negligent, criminal, and a massive fuck-up.


Spiegel Online article on Monday:

Quote :

"The maximum number of people who may be present on the event site at the same time is (...) limited to 250,000 people," reads the document from the Duisburg city administration giving approval for the event, which has been obtained by SPIEGEL ONLINE.
(...)
The two-page document, dated July 21, 2010, is addressed to the Berlin-based company Lopavent GmbH, the organizers of the Love Parade. It includes several passages that give cause for concern. For example, the authorities free the organizers from having to comply with the official width of emergency exits. "The width of the emergency exits on the east and south side of the site may not be less than 10 meters (33 feet) in any place," the text reads -- a width that is far less than that normally stipulated at such events. The officials also free the organizers from having to provide an emergency response plan for the fire department.
(...)
SPIEGEL ONLINE has also learned from sources in the Duisburg police that the police and fire departments had drawn up their own safety plan for the Love Parade, which they were not, however, able to implement. According to sources, the officials wanted the festival-goers to approach the site via a "large area" in a bid to prevent bottlenecks. The plan required a large number of officers to be deployed, however, and was in the end rejected by city authorities.
(...)
There are allegations that police may have tried to cover up what happened. SPIEGEL ONLINE has learned that one office of the Federal Police erased all its documents about the Love Parade -- including orders, reports from the scene and maps -- from the computers and e-mail accounts of its officers. "A big vacuum cleaner came round very quickly," said one officer, who believes it may have been part of a deliberate cover-up.
A spokesman for the Federal Police said late on Sunday there had been no instruction to remove data from computers. "All documents about the operation are available and can be requested and read," he said.

Spiegel Online article on Tuesday:

Quote :

On Monday, the tragedy claimed another victim. A 21-year-old German woman died from injuries sustained after being stampeded by a panicked crowd on Saturday, bringing the death toll to 20.
(...)
The Cologne-based Kölnische Rundschau newspaper quoted a police insider saying that the safety plans for the Duisburg event had been debated until virtually the last minute. Duisburg Mayor Adolf Sauerland had only approved the event and security planning at 9 a.m. on Saturday morning. The security planning had apparently still been the subject of debate on Friday night. According to the source, the Duisburg fire department and police had made clear that the security planning being considered was insufficient and that the event should not be held under those circumstances. However, they failed to push through their own alternative plan.

Also, the 2009 Love Parade was cancelled because... you guessed it...

Quote :

A year ago, Wenner [then the local chief of Police] cancelled the planned Love Parade in in Bochum, saying he "didn't want to sacrifice safety on the altar of good times," he said. (...) "Bochum could not even have guaranteed the safety of 800,000 people." Especially, the former police chief said, when people were under the influence of alcohol and drugs which could make them even more liable to panic in emergency situations.

The city backed his objections and, although Wenner became known as the man who cancelled the Love Parade, he says: "The pressure did not get to me." As the final line in his letter said: "Survival is more important."