Love Parade stampede
Encyclopedia
On 24 July 2010, a stampede
at the 2010 Love Parade
electronic dance music
festival in Duisburg
, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, caused the death of 21 people. At least 510 more were injured.
The Love Parade was a popular and free access festival and parade
that originated in 1989 in Berlin. The parade features stages, but has floats
with music, DJs and dancers moving through the audience. But this in Duisburg was the first edition of the festival that was organised in a closed-off area. Between 200,000 and people were reported to be attending the event and 3,200 police were on hand.
The event with the slogan "The Art of Love"
was one of the program elements of RUHR.2010, an effort to highlight cultural events in the Ruhr
area, one of 2010's European Capital of Culture
.
On 20 August 2010, the organization WikiLeaks
released 43 documents from the Duisburg police, contractors at the parade and other parties involved from 2007–2010.
Entrance was granted at 12:00 CEST
(10:00 UTC
). A 240-metre tunnel from the east and a series of underpasses from the west met at a ramp that was supposed to be the only entrance and exit point of the festival area. A smaller ramp existed between the underpasses from the west.
Because of overcrowding, police at the entrance began announcing over loudspeaker
s that new arrivals should turn around and head back. The side of the tunnel that was the entry of the parade area was closed, but people continued to enter the tunnel from the rear, despite being told it was closed. A stampede occurred as the ramp between tunnel underpasses and the festival area became overcrowded.
There was some debate as to how the deaths occurred. Some reports suggested they were caused by people falling off a staircase as they tried to escape the tunnel. However, autopsies showed that all of the fatalities were due to crushed rib cages.
Lopavent GmbH, the organiser of the love parade has released a film, depicting an explanation of the events. The film is based on CCTV recordings, explanatory animations, documents, press reports and eyewitness accounts released by the organisator.
Colorado
and founder of Trance Elements, a LoveParade artist/performer on float number 7, "The Ship of Fools" is cited from the Denver Post on his eyewitness account of walking through the tunnel before the event started:
, which was closed during the whole Love Parade, functioned as an access route for emergency services.
During a press conference on 25 July, organiser Rainer Schaller
stated that there would never again be another Love Parade, out of respect for those who lost their lives. "The Love Parade has always been a joyful and peaceful party, but in future would always be overshadowed by yesterday's events" he stated.
The German police and State's Attorney
(Staatsanwaltschaft) have opened an official criminal investigation. The Duisburg prosecutors office is investigating negligent homicide
, but they have not named who their investigation targets are.
Angela Merkel
quickly issued a statement that she was "aghast and saddened by the sorrow and the pain". German President
Christian Wulff
also expressed his condolences for the victims of the tragedy
that had "caused death, sorrow and pain amidst a peaceful festival of cheerful young people from many countries. ... My thoughts are with the victims of the tragedy and with all their family and friends".
On 26 July, Rainer Schaller, organiser of the festival, accused the police of mistakes in crowd control, which he claims led to the disaster.
On 28 July, the interior minister of North Rhine-Westphalia rejected this and assigned all the blame to Schaller, his company Lopavent, their security concept and the festival personnel.
On 29 July, several hundred people rallied at Duisburg's city hall, demanding the resignation of the mayor, Adolf Sauerland, depicting him at the gallows. The protesters claimed that Sauerland had been aware of sub-standard security provisions for the festival, but pushed his administration to approve the plans nonetheless. Sauerland however rejected the claims and repeatedly expressed that he would not resign. According to local trade union ver.di, members of all parts of the urban administration of Duisburg have been threatened (sanitation workers, call center agents). Traffic warden were not sent out at all for security reasons.
On 14 August it became known that Sauerland admitted to deceiving the public about the expected number of visitors at the event. The "several million people" he had been referring to prior to the parade were only "pushed numbers" for media attention in accordance with the organiser of the event. The organiser and the administration had also claimed 1.4 million visitors on the day the stampede occurred but it turned out that the area, which had been approved for 250,000, was apparently not even filled at the time. Due to threats on his life, Sauerland is currently protected by police.
After the Duisburg city council failed to reach a 2/3-majority to trigger an impeachment against Lord Mayor Adolf Sauerland (his CDU
refused to vote against him) on 13 September, the state government announced changes to the municipal code of North-Rhine-Westphalia. Interior secretary Ralf Jäger is responsible for both this reform and the police in North-Rhine-Westphalia, at the same time he is leader of the Duisburg Social Democrats
.
Stampede
A stampede is an act of mass impulse among herd animals or a crowd of people in which the herd collectively begins running with no clear direction or purpose....
at the 2010 Love Parade
Love Parade
The Love Parade was a popular electronic dance music festival and parade that originated in 1989 in West Berlin, Germany. It was held in Germany annually between 1989 and 2003 in Berlin, and then from 2006 to 2010 in the Ruhr region...
electronic dance music
Electronic dance music
Electronic dance music is electronic music produced primarily for the purposes of use within a nightclub setting, or in an environment that is centered upon dance-based entertainment...
festival in Duisburg
Duisburg
- History :A legend recorded by Johannes Aventinus holds that Duisburg, was built by the eponymous Tuisto, mythical progenitor of Germans, ca. 2395 BC...
, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, caused the death of 21 people. At least 510 more were injured.
The Love Parade was a popular and free access festival and parade
Parade
A parade is a procession of people, usually organized along a street, often in costume, and often accompanied by marching bands, floats or sometimes large balloons. Parades are held for a wide range of reasons, but are usually celebrations of some kind...
that originated in 1989 in Berlin. The parade features stages, but has floats
Float (parade)
A float is a decorated platform, either built on a vehicle or towed behind one, which is a component of many festive parades, such as those of Mardi Gras in New Orleans, the Carnival of Viareggio, the Maltese Carnival, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, the Key West Fantasy Fest parade, the...
with music, DJs and dancers moving through the audience. But this in Duisburg was the first edition of the festival that was organised in a closed-off area. Between 200,000 and people were reported to be attending the event and 3,200 police were on hand.
The event with the slogan "The Art of Love"
Ars Amatoria
The Ars amatoria is an instructional love elegy in three books by the Roman poet Ovid, penned around 2 CE. It claims to provide teaching in three areas of general preoccupation: how and where to find women in Rome, how to seduce them, and how to prevent others from stealing them.-Background:After...
was one of the program elements of RUHR.2010, an effort to highlight cultural events in the Ruhr
Ruhr
The Ruhr is a medium-size river in western Germany , a right tributary of the Rhine.-Description:The source of the Ruhr is near the town of Winterberg in the mountainous Sauerland region, at an elevation of approximately 2,200 feet...
area, one of 2010's European Capital of Culture
European Capital of Culture
The European Capital of Culture is a city designated by theEuropean Union for a period of one calendar year during which it organises a series of cultural events with a strong European dimension....
.
On 20 August 2010, the organization WikiLeaks
Wikileaks
WikiLeaks is an international self-described not-for-profit organisation that publishes submissions of private, secret, and classified media from anonymous news sources, news leaks, and whistleblowers. Its website, launched in 2006 under The Sunshine Press organisation, claimed a database of more...
released 43 documents from the Duisburg police, contractors at the parade and other parties involved from 2007–2010.
Incident
The festival was staged on the area of a former freight station. The capacity of the enclosed location was limited to 250,000 people, but more than one million visitors were expected, based on the experience of previous years.Entrance was granted at 12:00 CEST
Central European Summer Time
Central European Summer Time is one of the names of the Daylight saving time offset using the UTC offset of UTC+02:00, 2 hours ahead of Coordinated Universal Time. It is used as a summer daylight saving time in most European countries. During the winter, Central European Time is used...
(10:00 UTC
Coordinated Universal Time
Coordinated Universal Time is the primary time standard by which the world regulates clocks and time. It is one of several closely related successors to Greenwich Mean Time. Computer servers, online services and other entities that rely on having a universally accepted time use UTC for that purpose...
). A 240-metre tunnel from the east and a series of underpasses from the west met at a ramp that was supposed to be the only entrance and exit point of the festival area. A smaller ramp existed between the underpasses from the west.
Because of overcrowding, police at the entrance began announcing over loudspeaker
Loudspeaker
A loudspeaker is an electroacoustic transducer that produces sound in response to an electrical audio signal input. Non-electrical loudspeakers were developed as accessories to telephone systems, but electronic amplification by vacuum tube made loudspeakers more generally useful...
s that new arrivals should turn around and head back. The side of the tunnel that was the entry of the parade area was closed, but people continued to enter the tunnel from the rear, despite being told it was closed. A stampede occurred as the ramp between tunnel underpasses and the festival area became overcrowded.
There was some debate as to how the deaths occurred. Some reports suggested they were caused by people falling off a staircase as they tried to escape the tunnel. However, autopsies showed that all of the fatalities were due to crushed rib cages.
Lopavent GmbH, the organiser of the love parade has released a film, depicting an explanation of the events. The film is based on CCTV recordings, explanatory animations, documents, press reports and eyewitness accounts released by the organisator.
Fatalities
A total of 21 people died, 13 women and eight men, aged between 18 and 38 years. 14 were reported to be Germans – 7 men and 7 women. Among the seven casualties of other nationalities were two Spanish women aged 21 and 22 years, a 38-year-old Chinese woman living in Germany, a 22-year-old man from the Netherlands, a 21-year-old woman from Italy, a 21-year-old woman from Bosnia-Herzegovina, and a 27-year-old woman from Australia. Fifteen died at the site, six died in hospital.Eyewitness accounts
Newspaper eyewitness headlines
Bruce Cullen, from Parker,Colorado
Parker, Colorado
The Town of Parker is a Home Rule Municipality in Douglas County, Colorado, United States. As a self-declared "Town" under the Home Rule Statutes, Parker is the 2nd most populous town in the county, behind Castle Rock. In recent years, Parker has become a commuter town at the southeasternmost...
and founder of Trance Elements, a LoveParade artist/performer on float number 7, "The Ship of Fools" is cited from the Denver Post on his eyewitness account of walking through the tunnel before the event started:
Aftermath
Police chose not to close down the event, fearing that doing so could spark another panic. Nearby motorway A59Bundesautobahn 59
is an autobahn in Germany that starts in Dinslaken and runs with three breaks along Duisburg, Düsseldorf and Cologne to Bonn.In the south of Duisburg it is the city highway, too....
, which was closed during the whole Love Parade, functioned as an access route for emergency services.
During a press conference on 25 July, organiser Rainer Schaller
Rainer Schaller
Rainer Schaller is the president and chief executive officer of McFit GmbH, Lopavent GmbH, which since 2006 has been the organizing company of the Love Parade, an electronic dance music festival and parade, Loveparade Berlin GmbH and LoveParade.net GmbH.On 24 July 2010, at least 21 people were...
stated that there would never again be another Love Parade, out of respect for those who lost their lives. "The Love Parade has always been a joyful and peaceful party, but in future would always be overshadowed by yesterday's events" he stated.
The German police and State's Attorney
State's Attorney
In the United States, the State's Attorney is, most commonly, an elected official who represents the State in criminal prosecutions and is often the chief law enforcement officer of their respective county, circuit...
(Staatsanwaltschaft) have opened an official criminal investigation. The Duisburg prosecutors office is investigating negligent homicide
Negligent homicide
Negligent homicide is a criminal charge brought against people who, through criminal negligence, allow others to die.Negligent Homicide is a lesser included offense to first and second degree murder, in the sense that someone guilty of this offense can expect a more lenient sentence, often with...
, but they have not named who their investigation targets are.
Reactions
German ChancellorChancellor of Germany
The Chancellor of Germany is, under the German 1949 constitution, the head of government of Germany...
Angela Merkel
Angela Merkel
Angela Dorothea Merkel is the current Chancellor of Germany . Merkel, elected to the Bundestag from Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, has been the chairwoman of the Christian Democratic Union since 2000, and chairwoman of the CDU-CSU parliamentary coalition from 2002 to 2005.From 2005 to 2009 she led a...
quickly issued a statement that she was "aghast and saddened by the sorrow and the pain". German President
President of Germany
The President of the Federal Republic of Germany is the country's head of state. His official title in German is Bundespräsident . Germany has a parliamentary system of government and so the position of President is largely ceremonial...
Christian Wulff
Christian Wulff
Christian Wilhelm Walter Wulff is the President of Germany and a politician of the Christian Democratic Union. He was elected President on 2010 and publicly swore the oath of office on . A lawyer by profession, he served as Premier of the state of Lower Saxony from 2003 to 2010.-Early life and...
also expressed his condolences for the victims of the tragedy
Tragedy (event)
A tragedy is an event in which one or more losses, usually of human life, occurs that is viewed as mournful. Such an event is said to be tragic....
that had "caused death, sorrow and pain amidst a peaceful festival of cheerful young people from many countries. ... My thoughts are with the victims of the tragedy and with all their family and friends".
Assigning the blame
None of the involved organizations or officials took the blame for the disaster by 29 July. Instead, the involved parties issued several statements accusing each other in a circular manner:On 26 July, Rainer Schaller, organiser of the festival, accused the police of mistakes in crowd control, which he claims led to the disaster.
On 28 July, the interior minister of North Rhine-Westphalia rejected this and assigned all the blame to Schaller, his company Lopavent, their security concept and the festival personnel.
On 29 July, several hundred people rallied at Duisburg's city hall, demanding the resignation of the mayor, Adolf Sauerland, depicting him at the gallows. The protesters claimed that Sauerland had been aware of sub-standard security provisions for the festival, but pushed his administration to approve the plans nonetheless. Sauerland however rejected the claims and repeatedly expressed that he would not resign. According to local trade union ver.di, members of all parts of the urban administration of Duisburg have been threatened (sanitation workers, call center agents). Traffic warden were not sent out at all for security reasons.
On 14 August it became known that Sauerland admitted to deceiving the public about the expected number of visitors at the event. The "several million people" he had been referring to prior to the parade were only "pushed numbers" for media attention in accordance with the organiser of the event. The organiser and the administration had also claimed 1.4 million visitors on the day the stampede occurred but it turned out that the area, which had been approved for 250,000, was apparently not even filled at the time. Due to threats on his life, Sauerland is currently protected by police.
After the Duisburg city council failed to reach a 2/3-majority to trigger an impeachment against Lord Mayor Adolf Sauerland (his CDU
Christian Democratic Union (Germany)
The Christian Democratic Union of Germany is a Christian democratic and conservative political party in Germany. It is regarded as on the centre-right of the German political spectrum...
refused to vote against him) on 13 September, the state government announced changes to the municipal code of North-Rhine-Westphalia. Interior secretary Ralf Jäger is responsible for both this reform and the police in North-Rhine-Westphalia, at the same time he is leader of the Duisburg Social Democrats
Social Democratic Party of Germany
The Social Democratic Party of Germany is a social-democratic political party in Germany...
.
Pop culture
The incident is directly referred to with footage in the 2011 documentary Life in a Day.See also
- Hillsborough DisasterHillsborough disasterThe Hillsborough disaster was a human crush that occurred on 15 April 1989 at Hillsborough, a football stadium, the home of Sheffield Wednesday F.C. in Sheffield, England, resulting in the deaths of 96 people, and 766 being injured, all fans of Liverpool F.C....
- Heysel Stadium disasterHeysel Stadium disasterThe Heysel Stadium disaster occurred on 29 May 1985 when escaping fans were pressed against a wall in the Heysel Stadium in Brussels, Belgium, as a result of rioting before the start of the 1985 European Cup Final between Liverpool of England and Juventus of Italy...
- Ibrox disasterIbrox disasterThe Ibrox disaster refers to two accidents, in 1902 and 1971, which led to major loss of life at the Ibrox Stadium in Glasgow, Scotland.-First Ibrox disaster:...
- Luzhniki DisasterLuzhniki disasterThe Luzhniki disaster was a deadly human crush that took place at Lenin stadium in Moscow, Soviet Union during the UEFA Cup second round match between FC Spartak Moscow and HFC Haarlem on 20 October 1982. The official death toll to this day is 67, although many claim it to be as high as 340...
- Burnden Park disasterBurnden Park disasterThe Burnden Park Disaster was a human crush that occurred on 9 March 1946 at Burnden Park football stadium, the home of Bolton Wanderers. The crush resulted in the deaths of 33 people and injuries to hundreds of Bolton fans...
- Lan Kwai Fong disaster
- Roskilde Festival accident
- 1979 The Who concert disaster1979 The Who concert disasterThe 1979 Who concert disastertook place at the Riverfront Coliseum in Cincinnati, Ohio on 3 December 1979, as part of the band's U.S. tour, the first in three years...
- Big Day Out mosh pit death
- Herd behaviour
- Crowd controlCrowd controlCrowd control is the controlling of a crowd, to prevent the outbreak of disorder and prevention of possible riot. Examples are at soccer matches, when a sale of goods has attracted an excess of customers, refugee control, or mass decontamination and mass quarantine situations . It calls for gentler...
- Asphyxia
External links
- Documentation Loveparade 24. July 2010 by organizer Rainer Schaller: all monitoring videos
- TV-Documentation "An einem Tag in Duisburg: Todesfalle Loveparade" by ZDFZDFZweites Deutsches Fernsehen , ZDF, is a public-service German television broadcaster based in Mainz . It is run as an independent non-profit institution, which was founded by the German federal states . The ZDF is financed by television licence fees called GEZ and advertising revenues...
- Love Parade Duisburg, 24 July 2010, multi perspective video, 16:30 - 17:15 o'clock