At least eight people died Friday during a crush at a music festival in Houston, Texas, local media reported, citing police.
Authorities said scores of people were injured after some in the audience rushed toward the stage at the Astroworld Festival in the city’s NRG Park.
What do we know about the incident?
The surge began around 9 p.m. Friday night local time (0200 UTC Saturday).
People began to fall unconscious, and the mayhem escalated until 9:38 p.m. when a mass casualty incident was triggered, authorities said.
“We had at least eight confirmed fatalities tonight and scores of individuals that were injured,” Houston Fire Chief Samuel Pena said.
Pena described how a compression of the crowd toward the stage occurred while rapper Travis Scott was performing.
Rappe Travis Scott started the Astroworld Festival in Houston in 2018
The fire chief said officials did not immediately know the causes of death for those who died, and said a medical examiner would investigate.
Seventeen people have been hospitalized, with 11 of those were in cardiac arrest, Pena added.
Many people were also treated at the scene, where a field hospital was set up.
The event promoters had arranged for medical units to be on scene. However once the crowd surge began, those units were “quickly overwhelmed,” Pena said.
Emergency services set up a reunification center near the park and urged relatives of those who were at the concert to head there.
Video footage showed ambulance trolleys making their way through the crowd. Other clips showed paramedics performing CPR on people in the crowd while the performance continued.
It was not yet clear what caused the disaster.
The Houston Chronicle said Scott stopped multiple times during his 75-minute performance when he spotted fans in distress near the front of the stage.
He asked security to make sure they were OK and help them out of the crowd.
What is Astroworld?
Astroworld is a music festival created by American rapper Travis Scott and launched in 2018.
The 29-year-old rapper, who has a child with reality TV star Kylie Jenner, made his breakthrough in 2013 and has received six Grammy nominations.
The Houston Chronicle said a crowd of 50,000 had attended the two-day event.
The second day of the festival was called off shortly after Friday’s incident.
mm/wmr (AFP, AP, Reuters)
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