Thursday, July 29, 2010

In the news: Love stampede

Immense tragedy struck in Duisburg, Germany as an unforeseen part of the Love Parade music festival. The festival, which was only expected to have 700 or 800,000 partygoers, had an attendance of 1.4 million. In an attempt to accommodate this tremendous overload, the concert promoters herded 250,000 people through a tunnel toward another additional field; when this too was filled to capacity, people in the tunnel were crushed. Over 500 people were hospitalized and as of yesterday, 21 people were killed.

Protests are being held for the resignation of the mayor of Duisburg, blaming security for this incredible blunder.

Love Parade festival was first organized in West Berlin in 1989, in reaction to the not-yet-fallen Berlin Wall. It has since run, with two handfuls of kinks and cancellations, for the past 21 years under the motto, "Peace, Joy, Pancakes." Although Love Parade has featured an array of performances, the only genres that ever effectively stuck were trance, house, techno, and schranz music.

No comments:

Post a Comment