GERMANY-LOVE PARADE/VIGIL Friends, family remember victims of 2010 Love Parade stampede

Record ID: 149333

  • Title: GERMANY-LOVE PARADE/VIGIL Friends, family remember victims of 2010 Love Parade stampede
  • Date: 23rd July 2015
  • Summary: DUISBURG, GERMANY (JULY 23, 2015) (REUTERS) MEMORIAL PLAQUE READING (German) "DUISBURG REMEMBERS THE VICTIMS OF THE LOVE PARADE, JULY 24, 2010" / TUNNEL WHERE STAMPEDE OCCURED MAN CARRYING CANDLES / PEOPLE GATHERED OUTSIDE TUNNEL DJ DR. MOTTE, CREATOR OF THE LOVE PARADE, PLACING CANDLE ON GROUND FLAGS / MEMORIAL SITE SEEN FROM ABOVE CANDLES LAID OUT IN THE FORM "2010" WOMA
  • Embargoed: 7th August 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Germany
  • Country: Germany
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVABGGK96S69BPNPVPJXD90Z6CST
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Almost five years on from the Love Parade disaster, friends and relatives of the victims held a candlelit vigil on Thursday (July 23) in memory of those who died during the stampede at the techno music festival.
    Twenty-one people aged 20 to 40 were killed and more than 500 injured on July 24, 2010 when hordes of young people pushed through a tunnel into the techno festival area at a former freight rail yard in Duisburg, a poor western German city of about 500,000 inhabitants.
    Eight foreigners -- from Australia, Bosnia, China, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain -- were among those killed in the stampede.
    As dusk fell on Thursday evening, mourners laid tributes and flowers at the memorial site and covered the area with lit candles in a "Night of a thousand lights". Among those present was the founder of the Love Parade festival, DJ Dr. Motte.
    For the friends and families of the victims, the anniversary can unleash a flood of horrific memories.
    Two days ahead of the anniversary on Friday (July 24), 41-year-old single parent Joern Teich described how he spontaneously joined the parade to show his then four-year-old daughter.
    "I was standing there with several adults. Together with the children we tried to get out but we did not succeed," he told Reuters on Wednesday (July 22).
    "I ran up this embankment because I had thought that the highway was an emergency exit. But the police did not let us out. I then tried to at least hand them the children over the fence. But the policeman replied 'no, not the kids either. Otherwise we'll throw them back. This is not an exit.' That's when I gave up. I had a nervous breakdown. I sat down with the children at the wall of the underpass and started playing something with them while I saw how people were running off in panic," he said.
    Police have said local officials ignored warnings that Duisburg would be too small to host one million people at the Love Parade, while the organisers blamed police for letting too many into the railyard.
    The Love Parade originated in Berlin and was held in a large park there until 2006.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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