HOUSTON (AP) — A crowd at a Houston music festival suddenly rose to the level of a functionality through rapper Travis Scott, hugging enthusiasts so tightly they couldn’t breathe or move their arms, witnesses said Saturday, hours after at least 8 people died. in chaos.
The pandemonium took place Friday night at Astroworld, a full two-day occasion at NRG Park with around 50,000 more people in attendance. When a timer clicked until the beginning of the performance, the crowd moved forward.
“As soon as he jumped on stage, it was as if a power took control and everything went crazy,” said onloothander Niaara Goods. “Suddenly, your ribs are crushed. You have someone’s arm on your neck. breathe, but you can’t.
Goods said she was so desperate to get out that she bit a boy on the shoulder to get him to move.
The dead ranged in age from 14 to 27 and thirteen others remained hospitalized, Mayor Sylvester Turner said. He called the crisis a “tragedy on many other levels” and said it was too early to draw conclusions about what was wrong.
“It’s possible that this tragedy is the result of unpredictable events, cases that also can’t have been avoided,” said Judge Lina Hidalgo, Harris County’s most sensible elected official. Questions.
Experts who have studied deaths from influx of people say they are the result of density: too many people crammed into a small space. Crowds flee a perceived risk or move toward whatever they want, like an artist, before hitting a barrier.
G. Keith Still, a visiting professor of mass science at Suffolk University in the UK, has testified as a skilled witness in court instances involving crowds. He said he doesn’t look at witness reports when starting to analyze an incident because feelings can blur the picture and witnesses can only see what surrounds them right away.
According to chimney codes, the venue may have accommodated 200,000 people, but city officials limited attendance to 50,000, Houston Fire Chief Samuel Pena said.
“It was the crowd at the point that was the problem, especially since the crowd started shooting toward the point,” Peña said.
The deaths were similar to a 1979 concert via The Who, where 11 other people died when thousands of enthusiasts tried to enter Cincinnati’s Riverfront Coliseum. England, and errors similar to the annual hajj in Saudi Arabia.
People in the Houston crowd reported that there was a lot of pushing in Scott’s pre-set performances.
Then, as Scott took the stage, the crowd seemed to rush forward, looking to get closer to the stage, said Nick Johnson, one of the top students at Houston’s suburban school in Friendswood, who at the concert with friends.
“Everyone around you faints and everyone is looking to help each other. But you may just not move. There is nothing you can do. You can’t even raise your arms,” Johnson said.
Johnson said enthusiasts started bumping and other people started screaming. He said it like a hundred degrees in the crowd.
Scott appeared to be aware of what was going on in the crowd, but possibly would not have understood the gravity of the situation, Johnson said.
In a video posted on social media, Scott can be seen impeding the concert at one point and asking the audience for help: “Safety is helping very quickly. “
In a tweet Saturday, Scott said he was “absolutely devastated by what happened last night. “
Amy Harris, an independent photographer for The Associated Press, described an “aggressive” public atmosphere on the day because of the way enthusiasts behaved: pushing and running toward level barricades and banning VIP and admission areas.
“It’s definitely the most chaotic festival environment I’ve ever been in,” Harris said. “I felt uncomfortable all day. “
She was found trapped in a barricade while photographing artist Don Toliver because some three hundred enthusiasts rushed to the area and met her at the security barricade.
He found a scene on another level for the main act and walked out of the media pit after 3 songs due to the disorder, which led other people to cross the security barricade for medical treatment.
At one point, Gerardo Abad-Garcia squeezed so tightly into the crowd that he couldn’t pull his arms out of his chest. During Toliver’s performance, which preceded Scott’s appearance, he began to worry about his safety.
“I just couldn’t breathe. I compressed myself,” he said. A security guard helped him and others climb a fence and get out.
He described to the crowd that Scott’s ensemble was a wave that “went back and forth. “
Some other people lost their shoes, and the ground was filled with clothes and garbage. He said other people tried to help those who fainted on the ground, while other onlookers seemed to forget about them and continued to watch the show.
After Scott’s concert, Abad-Garcia saw medical staff performing CPR on a user who gave the impression of being subconscious like the user carried in a golf cart.
Authorities have not disclosed the reasons for the death and the dead have not been identified.
Houston Police Chief Troy Finner said the government was investigating reports of suspicious activity in the crowd, adding that a security guard told police he felt a prick in his neck from the chaos and lost consciousness on his examination through first responders.
He was resurrected through the opioid antidote Narcan, Finner said.
Scott, one of music’s biggest young stars, founded the Astroworld Festival in 2018. The 29-year-old Houston native has been nominated for 8 Grammy Awards. He has a 3-year-old daughter with Kylie Jenner, who announced in September that she is pregnant with her son for the time being.
Drake joined Scott at the concert, which was streamed live via Apple Music.
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Associated Press editors Ryan Pearson in Los Angeles, Stan Choe in New York, David Sharp in Portland, Maine and Desiree Seals in Atlanta contributed to this report.