At least eight people were killed and dozens more injured after a Friday night stampede at a music festival in Houston, Texas.
Panic broke out when the crowd started pushing towards the stage of the f summer Astroworld in the middle of the performance of the rapper Travis Scott.
Eleven people were taken to the hospital with cardiac arrest and eight died. Among the injured victims was a minor, barely 10 years old.
Some 300 people were treated for injuries such as cuts and bruises at the event, which was attended by 50,000 people.
“I am absolutely devastated by what happened last night ,” Scott said Saturday. “My prayers are with the families of all those affected by what happened,” he said in a statement on Twitter.
Travis Scott thanked police and emergency services and said he was “committed to working together with the Houston community to comfort and support families in need.”
Local politician Lina Hidalgo, Harris County Judge, described the incident as an “extremely tragic night.”
“Our hearts are broken. People come to these events to have a good time, to relax, to create memories. It is not the type of event that you go to expecting that they have passed away,” he said.
The incident happened around 9:15 pm local time this Friday, said Houston hat chief Samuel Peña.
“The crowd began to push towards the front of the stage and people began to panic,” he said in statements to the press.
And as the stampede began to cause injuries, panic increased, Peña said.
According to the Houston Chronicle newspaper, Travis Scott, founder of the festival, stopped his performance several times when he saw fans in danger in front of the stage.
The American rapper asked members of security to see to it that the fans were okay and to help them get away from the crowd.
Organizers called off the concert after the high number of people injured, but the real scale of casualties soon exceeded the capabilities of first aid teams, Peña said.
“The people in front were in danger” : Joey Guerra, music critic for the Houston Chronicle
I was there most of the day and there had been minor incidents. When the doors were opened, people stampeded and jumped the metal detectors, and some people were injured.
I saw a couple of times that they took people out on stretchers. I’m not sure what the reasons were.
During Travis Scott’s participation, there were several occasions where emergency vehicles with their lights on could be seen in the crowd, but they made their way and the show continued.
Travis Scott himself stopped his show multiple times to signal people near the front that they were in danger, or ask if they needed help to ask security to come help them.
I don’t think he was aware of the extent of what was happening.
The night wasn’t supposed to end like this. Today, most of the streets surrounding the Astroworld festival grounds are still closed, and the venue is almost empty except for its workers and a heavy police presence.
Edward, a 25-year-old Houston native and longtime Travis Scott fan, attended Friday’s performances and the previous two Astroworld festivals.
He was right in the middle of the crowd when, he says, things started to get ugly. As the wave worsened within minutes, desperate concert goers tried to escape, pushing and pulling.
“Personally, I grabbed a girl and hugged her to save her life,” he said. “I had to calm her down because she literally thought she was about to die.”
Edward says he made a protective circle with his arms around her so she could catch her breath. He was able to get her out of the crowd and help her get to safety. As he left, he saw unconscious people around him, some of whom were already receiving CPR.
Another attendee, Andy Pacheco, filmed the moment concert attendee Seanna Faith, in a desperate plea for help, climbed onto a platform where a cameraman was posted to ask her to do something about the increasing crowd. He wanted the cameraman to call the police or the doctors. But his request for help was in vain.
Faith later wrote on social media that she had just escaped a “sinkhole” of people, as the overcrowding had become more intense.
He managed to date a friend and was trying to get help for others.
People come to these festivals to escape reality and feel that they belong to a musical community. On Friday night, that sense of belonging turned deadly.
A reunification center has been set up at the Wyndham hotel in Houston for families who have not heard from their loved ones who were at the festival.
The event began this Friday and thousands of people went through the relevant security controls to access the concert.
The second and last day of the festival, scheduled for this Saturday, has been canceled.
“No one could imagine this. But here we are and I think it is very important that we not speculate . No one has answers tonight,” said Houston Police Chief Troy Finner.
Live Nation, the event’s organizing company, did not immediately respond to requests for comment, according to Reuters.
Astroworld is an annual event that has been held at the NGR Park in Houston since 2018, although last year it was postponed due to the covid-19 pandemic.