Concert stampede kills 10
SMH.com

February 10, 2008

Ten young people have been trampled or crushed to death as hundreds of music fans tried to force their way out of a rock concert in the Indonesian city of Bandung.

Witnesses told the Pikiran Rakyat newspaper that people inside the packed venue were trying to escape the crush just as hundreds of others were surging their way inside.

“Ten people were killed, one of them has not yet been identified. Six other people were injured,” Bandung police chief Bambang Suparsono told the Detikcom online news portal.

The dead are mostly teenagers. He said an investigation was under way into the incident late yesterday.

Detikcom, quoting another police officer, said the capacity of the building was for 700 people but that only around 400 attended the concert by a popular punk rock group.

However, Pikiran Rakyat said there were more than 1500 people inside.

Detikcom said at least 40 were being questioned, while a police officer at Bandung, the capital of West Java, said three organisers were being quizzed as suspects.

“The bodies of 10 people have been brought here but all but three have been taken by their family,” said Toto, a staff member at the local hospital morgue where the dead were initially brought.

Suparsono said the crush occurred as people tried to leave the Asia Africa Arts Hall in downtown Bandung.

One 19-year-old witness told Pikiran Rakyat: “Outside, there were hundreds of people pushing to enter. They were pushing at the gate.

“Inside, there were also a lot of people who wanted to leave, because the hall was so packed that it was difficult to breathe.”

Another witness told the paper that while the band was playing, hundreds of people forced their way in, damaging the entranceway.

Six dead in concert stampede

SMH.com

SIX people died and several were injured overnight in a stampede at a concert held in Tunisia.

The stampede occurred at a theatre at Sfax, 300 kilometres south of the capital Tunis, where a concert was being held for the TV program Star Academy Lebanon, an official said.

Rescuers rushed to the Sidi Mansour theatre, the official said.

 

This is also an intersting related journal article about the deaths that occurred at The Who concert in 1979.  http://www.jstor.org/pss/800813

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