The authorities said they will watch the video and interview witness And review the concert agreement to determine how 8 people died Houston Fans suddenly flocked to the stage to watch the rapper’s music festival Travis Scott.
City officials said on Saturday that they are in the early stages of investigating the chaos that occurred on Friday night. Astronomical World, The two-day event held at NRG Park was sold out, with an estimated 50,000 people attending. One participant said that when the timer for the start of Scott’s performance was pressed, the crowd moved forward.
“As soon as he jumped onto the stage, it was as if a wave of energy had taken over everything, and everything became messy,” said concert audience Niaara Goods. “Suddenly, your ribs were crushed. There are human arms on your neck. You tried to breathe, but you couldn’t.”
Goods said she wanted to go out so much that she bit a man on the shoulder to make him move.
Mayor Sylvester Turner said the deceased ranged in age from 14 to 27, and 13 people were still hospitalized on Saturday. He called the disaster “tragedy at many different levels” and said that it is too early to draw conclusions on what went wrong. Dozens of people were injured.
Judge Lina Hidalgo, the highest elected official in Harris County, said: “This tragedy is likely to be the result of unpredictable events and unavoidable circumstances.” “But before we determine this, I Some tricky questions will be asked.”
Researched experts Death caused by a surge in crowds It is said that they are usually the result of density—too many people are crowded into a small space. Before hitting an obstacle, the crowd usually either stays away from the perceived threat or rushes towards what they want, such as a performer.
G. Keith Still is a visiting professor of population science at Suffolk University in the United Kingdom, who testifies as an expert witness in court cases involving crowds. He said that in the early stages of analyzing an event, he usually does not read the reports of witnesses, because emotions will cast shadows on the picture, and witnesses can only see the surroundings.
Houston Fire Department Chief Samuel Peña said that according to fire regulations, the venue could have accommodated 200,000 people, but city officials limited the attendance to 50,000.
“The problem is crowd control on the stage, especially when the crowd starts to flock to the stage,” Peña said.
Those reminiscent deaths 11 people died at The Who concert in 1979 Thousands of fans tried to enter Cincinnati’s Riverfront Stadium.other Past crowd disaster These include the deaths of 97 people at the overcrowded Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield, England in 1989, and the numerous disasters associated with the annual Hajj in Saudi Arabia.
People in the Houston crowd reported that they often pushed and shoved during Scott’s performance before the show.
Nick Johnson, a high school student from Friendswood, a suburb of Houston, said that when Scott took the stage, the crowd seemed to rush to the front, trying to get closer to the stage.
“Everyone is fainting by your side, everyone is trying to help each other. But you just can’t move. You can’t do anything. You can’t even raise your arms,” Johnson said. “It’s getting worse and worse.”
Johnson said that fans began to squeeze each other and people began to scream. He said that it feels like 100 degrees in the crowd.
Johnson said that Scott seemed to realize that something was happening in the crowd, but he might not understand the seriousness of the situation. Social media posts showed that when Scott performed, there seemed to be dozens of rows of fans on the stage chanting “stop the show.” Another post showed that two fans climbed the ladder of the platform and asked the photographer to do something.
In the video posted to social media, it can be seen that Scott stopped the concert and asked someone in the audience for help: “Safe, someone will help soon.”
In a tweet posted on Saturday, Scott said he was “very shocked by what happened last night.” He pledged to “work with the Houston community to heal and support families in need.”
Amy Harris, a freelance photographer for the Associated Press, described the “aggressive” crowd atmosphere throughout the day because of the way fans behaved-pushing stage barriers and prohibited VIPs and admission areas.
“This is definitely the most chaotic holiday environment I have ever experienced,” Harris said. “I feel upset all day.”
Houston Police Chief Troy Finner said his department noticed the attendees “falling down” at 9.30pm and immediately notified the concert organizers. After the fire department and officials discussed with NRG Park, the event was cancelled after 40 minutes.
Fenner defended the time required to cancel the event.
“When you have 50,000-more than 50,000-people, you can’t just shut down, okay?” Fenner said. “We have to worry about riots-riots-when you have such a young group.”
Once, Gerardo Abad-Garcia was so tightly pressed in the crowd that his arms could not be removed from his chest. In Scott’s previous performances, he began to worry about his safety.
“I can’t breathe. I’m compressed,” he said. A security guard helped him and others climb the fence and leave.
He described the crowd during Scott’s filming as “forward and backward” waves. He said that some people tried to help those who fainted on the ground, while other audiences seemed to ignore them and continued to watch the show.
Some viewers stated that a roadblock erected near the stage separates different parts of the ticket holders to prevent fans from escaping.
Billy Nasser described the area formed by the stage barricade as a closet in which people were thrown into the closet with the door closed. Joshua Robinson said the barricade created an area that was “too small and too tight” for the number of people there.
The fire chief said that part of the investigation will include reviewing the design of the area around the stage.
The authorities did not disclose the cause of death and did not immediately confirm the identity of the deceased.
The police chief said that the authorities were investigating reports of suspicious activity in the crowd. One of the security guards told the police that he felt a tingling in his neck in the chaos and lost consciousness when being checked by emergency personnel. He was awakened by the opioid antidote Nalkan.
Scott is one of the hottest young stars in the music industry. He founded the Astroworld Festival in 2018. The 30-year-old Houston native has been nominated for eight Grammy Awards. He and Kylie Jenner have a 3-year-old daughter, and Kylie Jenner announced in September that she was pregnant with their second child.
Drake participated in a live Apple Music concert with Scott on stage.
© 2021 Canadian Press
