GERMANY-LOVE PARADE/MEMORIAL Memorial service marks five years since deadly stampede at Love Parade music festival

Record ID: 149504

  • Title: GERMANY-LOVE PARADE/MEMORIAL Memorial service marks five years since deadly stampede at Love Parade music festival
  • Date: 24th July 2015
  • Summary: (SOUNDBITE) (German) MAYOR OF DUISBURG, SOEREN LINK, SAYING: "Five years have passed since that beautiful summer's day on which this town and thousands of techno fans from around the world celebrated with enthusiasm. It was the day that the biggest techno party of the year should have taken place here in Duisburg, a few metres from here. It was that day of the 19th Love Pa
  • Embargoed: 8th August 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Germany
  • Country: Germany
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA94QR08I2EFLJH5IGZSN255PLY
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: A memorial service was held in the western German town of Duisburg on Friday (July 24) to mark five years since a deadly stampede at the Love Parade techno festival.
    21 people were killed and 500 injured in a stampede in a tunnel at the 2010 festival where mass panic broke out because the only entrance gate was too small for the huge crowd.
    Eight foreigners - from Spain, Bosnia, the Netherlands, Australia, Italy and China - were among those killed when young people pushed through an underpass into the festival grounds at a former freight rail yard.
    The city's mayor, who was not in office at the time of the tragedy, said it was a day that changed the lives of many people.
    "Five years have passed since that beautiful summer's day on which this town and thousands of techno fans from around the world celebrated with enthusiasm. It was the day that the biggest techno party of the year should have taken place here in Duisburg, a few metres from here. It was that day of the 19th Love Parade and it was the day the Love Parade ended with an unbelievable catastrophe. For 21 families, the 24 July 2010 is a day which they associate with an unmeasurable and infinite sorrow," mayor Soeren Link said to relatives of the victims who gathered at the ceremony, held very close to where the stampede took place.
    State prosecutors investigated why an event set up for 250,000 people ended up with nearly 500,000 attending. They said the entrance was not big enough to handle the numbers of those attending and said those charged should have known that.
    They have charged 10 organisers with negligent manslaughter and bodily harm over the incident.
    Six private event organisers and four city workers face five years in jail if convicted for the deaths and injuries. But five years on, a trial still has yet to take place, something which Link said was hampering attempts by the victims' relatives to deal with what happened to their loved ones.
    "It is not possible to explain to the relatives of the victims that after five years there are still so many open questions and so few answers, such little certainty. I can only imagine how much of a burden this is for them, how they desperately wish for clarification over what happened at the Love Parade. Many people are waiting, like I am, for a legal clarification to have as an important step towards dealing with the tragedy," Link said.
    A permanent memorial bearing the date of the incident has been set up near the site.
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