Germany’s annual dance and music festival Love Parade ended tragically on Saturday after a stampede killed 19 people and injured at least 340, including travelers from Australia, Italy, and China. 1.4 million people reportedly turned out for the event, overcrowding the grounds which had a capacity of only 250,000, according to German magazine Spiegel. Police had closed all but one entrance to the festival in an effort to control crowds when panic broke out in a tunnel with no exit and 16 victims were trampled on the scene.
The festival will be discontinued due to the deaths; organizer Rainer Schaller stated: “The Love Parade has always been a peaceful party, but it will for ever be overshadowed by the accident, so out of respect for the victims the Love Parade will never take place again.” Love Parade originated in Berlin just before the fall of the Berlin Wall as a peace demonstration and has evolved into one of the world’s largest electronic music events, inspiring spin-off festivals from San Francisco to Australia. The 2010 theme was “The Art of Love.”
[Photo credit: Flickr user AchimH]