Guwahati News Desk: At least eight people died and scores of people hurt after a panic broke out amongst the crowd on the opening night of rapper Travis Scott’s Astroworld music festival in Houston, Texas.
As informed by the Houston Fire Chief Samuel Pena, the incident began around 21:15 (02:15 GMT) on Friday.
According to reports, eleven people suffered cardiac arrest and were immdiately taken to hospitals. However, eight among them died. In addition, some casualties were aged as young as 10-year-olds.
The county judge of Harris County, Lina Hidalgo, described the incident as an “extremely tragic night”.
She added, “Our hearts are broken…People go to these events looking for a good time, a chance to unwind, to make memories – it’s not the kind of event you go to where you expect to find out about fatalities.”
In addition, expressing their grief in a statement Astroworld said that their hearts were with the “festival family… especially those we lost and their loved ones”. They also thanked local emergency services for their response.
Regarding the incident, severe panic broke out after the crowd began to press towards the front of the stage at the rapper’s festival.
Moreover, even the founder of the festival, Travis Scott, had stopped multiple times during his 75-minute performance when he spotted fans in distress near the front of the stage. The rapper further asked the security to make sure whether the fans were okay and ordered to help them out of the crowd.
Eventually, on realizing that many people had been hurt, the organisers of the festival halted the event.
Furthermore, amateur video from the concert surfaced on social media that showed the fans jumping on an emergency vehicle in the crowd as the performance continued on stage.