Love hurts

[Skybird]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-10751899

A mass panic at the love parade in Duisburg killed at least 15 during a stampede in a tunnel. the festival was decided to run on to avoid another, even bigger panic when breaking off too abruptly. Instead, people left in small groups, with many still partying and not even knowing what was happening.

The inner town of Duisburg currently faces pure chaos due to masses of people trying to move out. The central train station has broken down. Cellphone networks also collapsed.

[Jimbuna]

Beaten by nearly an hour (topic wise but not detail)

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=172814

Oh, and a real tragedy

[Skybird]

I wanted to avoid that thread, due to the quoted comments.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Skybird

I wanted to avoid that thread, due to the quoted comments.

Yeah...understandable

[Schroeder]

I never thought I would see something like that in Germany.
Absolutely tragic.

[Skybird]

Now 18 dead, 100 injured.

Massive accusations start to get fired at the organisers, they chose a place with just one entrance, that was big enough for only 350 thousand - although they expected more than 1 million from beginning on. Estimations say in the end there have been 2 million. Warnings to the police that the situation in the entrance tunnel became critical, were dismissed with pointing repsonsibility for that back to the organisers. Duisburg has a population of 490 thousand

[Tchocky]

Drove through Duisburg this morning, feels weird.

Horrible thing to happen, reminds me of Roskilde

[Alex]

Originally Posted by Skybird

love parade

Decadence.
In the US yes, but I would have never thought that sort of thing could happen in Germany.
Poor people...

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Alex

Decadence.

I am no fan of the love parade. I hate rave music. I do not like taking drugs in public, and getting drunk at noontime. However, many people visiting that event are not like that, they just want to do what they consider to be a big party. I still do not like it, but that is no reason why I should not see the tragedy here, even if you always have to take into account the effects of mass panics when you go to a place with hundreds of thousands of people in the audience - in this case, the outcome was not just becasue an inherent risk that can only be minimised but cannot completely be avoided, but it was provoked by the organisers.

I also oppose the dirty comments that were quoted in the other thread, and that you can find in the internet about pigs and homosexuals finding their well-deserved end. The Love Parade is a rave party, not the Christopher Street Day. And concerning the latter, I still wpould not will, or even wish them death and panic. Just that they would stop to provoke with their freaky behavior that is a disgrace to their cause and an offence to many homosexuals who dispise the CSD right for what it is: a parade of idiotic, provokating freaks who think they are the navel of the universe and must violate cultural taboos in our society, no matter the cost.

[Alex]

I concur.

[tater]

Originally Posted by Alex

Decadence.
In the US yes, but I would have never thought that sort of thing could happen in Germany.
Poor people...

WTF.

Why would this happen more in the US, exactly? I cannot imagine a US city Fire Marshall allowing this event with no emergency exits. Stampede deaths in the US are rare, and tend to actually happen in large venues far better designed for egress that that place (an accident waiting to happen, WTF were they thinking?)—like stadiums. In that case, it's just panic, all it takes is LOCAL crowding to result in injuries or deaths.

It's amazing the toll at that tunnel is as low as it is, frankly.

[August]

Originally Posted by tater

WTF.

Why would this happen more in the US, exactly? I cannot imagine a US city Fire Marshall allowing this event with no emergency exits. Stampede deaths in the US are rare, and tend to actually happen in large venues far better designed for egress that that place (an accident waiting to happen, WTF were they thinking?)—like stadiums. In that case, it's just panic, all it takes is LOCAL crowding to result in injuries or deaths.

It's amazing the toll at that tunnel is as low as it is, frankly.

Agreed. I'm surprised that the German government doesn't already have regulations prohibiting this. Yeah the organizers are at fault but who approved their permits?

[Schroeder]

Originally Posted by August

Agreed. I'm surprised that the German government doesn't already have regulations prohibiting this. Yeah the organizers are at fault but who approved their permits?

There are regulations against that and I'm at a loss why no one intervened much earlier. Either they told whoever is responsible for giving the permission that a lot less people would come or that guy simply had no idea of his job. In any case I'm surprised that neither the firefighters nor the police stopped this before it got out of hand. Totally insane!

[tater]

The fire marshall here in ABQ won't let them put crayon drawings up on the windows at kindergarten, lol. They'd never approve that venue.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by August

Agreed. I'm surprised that the German government doesn't already have regulations prohibiting this. Yeah the organizers are at fault but who approved their permits?

The "Stadtrat" (=city council, I think). the police later failed when warning were coming in, but they ignored them, saying that they (the police) are not responsible, but that the organisers are.

The state attorney has started investigations over charges of "fahrlässige Tötung" (=murder by negligence, I think).

The state government of Northrhine Westphalia maybe also has a share in this. The Ruhrgebiet, once the heart of the German coal mining industry, has declared 2010 a year to show that the region has successfully transformed from being a mining complex into a region of tourism and - fanfares! - culture economy, of which the love parade I suppose was meant to be a prominent example in a number of public events that are meant to "celebrate" this new Ruhrgebiet culture throughout 2010. In fact, the love parade in Duisburg is claimed to be just a massive sponsoring event for McFit by the original founder of the love poarade ocncept, "Dr. Motte".

Yeah, drugs, alcohol and techno. Brave new "culture". Bach, Rilke and Friedrich must turn in their graves when being minimised by calling this modern stuff "Kultur". Today, lining up six men on the stage, all naked, already qualifies for being called a new "culture of theatre", for the simple fact that they are naked. In ten years I will be called a great artist and an icon of modern culture for just having the face that I have.

It has been declared during a press conference, that there will be no more love parades. Duisburg was the last one, after it already had been abandoned by the orginal host, Berlin, where it took place for many years. The original inventor and founder of the love parade has withdrawn and left it behind already four years go, in anger.