19 people have died and hundreds more injured as a result of massive overcrowding at this year's Love Parade, held in Duisburg.
The problems were reportedly caused by there being only a single entrance to the festival site, which was a disused railway station. At 5pm on Saturday evening, organisers decided to close the main site which was already badly overcrowded, but this created a massive backlogue of would be revellers in the underpass leading into the site.
Kevin Krausgartner was there in the tunnel, and described the scene to Welt Online: "There were 25 people lying in a heap. I screamed – people could no longer get any air. I saw dead people, and one person was sitting there looking extremely pale. I wanted to give him some water, but the ambulance medic told me there was no point as he was already dead."
It has transpired through a leacked official city document that the event was cleared for only 250,000 guests, although more than 1.4 million people are reported to have turned up.
The organizers are to be blamed," says Dr. Motte who threw the first Love Parade party back in 2989, four months before the Berlin wall was demolished. "It is a scandal to only allow the people a single entrance to the party site... The organizers didn't have the least amount of concern for the people."
The festival was this year organised by Rainer Schaller, who has come in for heavy critisism from many quarters. As a result, Schaller has announced that there will be no more Love Parade's in the future.
An investigation into the deaths in currently underway.
