GERMANY: German Chancellor Angela Merkel joins mourners at memorial for 21 Love Parade stampede victims

Record ID: 451557

  • Title: GERMANY: German Chancellor Angela Merkel joins mourners at memorial for 21 Love Parade stampede victims
  • Date: 1st August 2010
  • Summary: SCREEN SHOWING MEMORIAL SERVICE
  • Embargoed: 16th August 2010 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Germany
  • Country: Germany
  • Topics: Disasters / Accidents / Natural catastrophes,Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVAZPVPEPD0U3VPTIE3PIZDUJS0
  • Story Text: Chancellor Angela Merkel attended a memorial service on Saturday (July 31) one week after 21 people were killed in a stampede at the Love Parade techno music festival as pressure grew on the local mayor, her party ally, to resign.
    "The love parade turned into a dance of death," Nikolaus Schneider, head of the Protestant church in Germany, told 550 mourners in the Salvator Church at the emotional memorial which was broadcast live on four national television networks.
    Twenty-one people were killed and more than 500 injured when hordes of young people pushed through a tunnel into the techno festival area at a former freight rail yard in Duisburg, an impoverished western German city of 500,000.
    Merkel interrupted her summer holiday to attend the service but criticism of mayor Adolf Sauerland over Saturday's disaster has grown so intense that he opted to stay away.
    Sauerland, a leader in Merkel's Christian Democrats, has been assailed for ignoring warnings from city planning agencies, police and fire officials. They had warned Duisburg was too small to host the event with a crowd of up to a million people.
    That such death and chaos could happen in a country like Germany, with its rules and reputation for organisational skills, has prompted national soul-searching and led to angry finger-pointing in Duisburg.
    Police said local officials were to blame for ignoring warnings while organisers blamed police for letting too many people into the rail yard.
    Some political analysts have warned Sauerland's refusal to step down could hurt Merkel's CDU because it raises questions about the conservatives' credibility on security issues -- ordinarily considered one of their strengths.
    Merkel did not speak at the memorial. Hannelore Kraft, state premier of North Rhine-Westphalia and a leader in the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD), said there were many unresolved issues about what went wrong.
    "There are too many questions and not enough answers," said Kraft, fighting back tears. Her teenage son was at the Love Parade but not hurt. "How could this happen, who is to blame and who is responsible? These are questions that we have to answer."
    Kraft also urged the public to tale a lesson from the event and rethink human values.
    "For the well-being and safety of each person has to once again become the guiding light of our actions. Above and beyond all other motives. This must and will become our common duty," she said.
    Mourners also gathered at Duisburg's soccer stadium to watch the church service broadcast on a live screen before visiting the tunnel which was the site of the crush.
    People who had come to lay flowers were still trying to come to terms with the tragedy that happened one week ago.
    "It's a really strange feeling. When you think about the fact that it could have been us. It's impossible to put the feeling into words," said Jessica Burg.
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