19 crushed to death and more than 300 injured after mass panic at Germany's Love Parade
By Christopher Leake
Last updated at 9:45 AM on 25th July 2010
LINK(excerpt)
Nineteen people were killed and 340 injured last night when mass panic broke out at a German music festival.
The victims were crushed and emergency workers had trouble getting through to them after a stampede during the annual Love Parade techno music festival in the city of Duisburg, attended by up to 1.4million people.
Witnesses described piles of bodies stacked on top of each other and revellers climbing walls to escape the crush.
Many were pinned shoulder to shoulder in the tunnel and unable to move. People standing on the motorway bridge above the scene could only watch helpless as at least 15 were crushed to death.
Duisburg police director Ralf Klauckmass said there had been ‘mass panic’.
The stampede broke out after authorities tried to stop thousands from entering the area where the parade was being held in the grounds of an old freight depot.
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Prayers to the families.