Love Parade Berlin

[Fragony]

Love parade is free. But this is a major organisation fail, surprising coming from Germans. How did they expect emergency to get either in or out. In the middle of the summer ffs. People can get overheated or dehydrated, people can overdose. They expected 250.000 wut? It's the Love parade they should have at least expected a million. Did they haul water for only 250.000? Maybe what happened was the best possible scenario, and we should be glad only 19 people died.

[Skullheadhq]

Love parade is free. But this is a major organisation fail, surprising coming from Germans. How did they expect emergency to get either in or out. In the middle of the summer ffs. People can get overheated or dehydrated, people can overdose. They expected 250.000 wut? It's the Love parade they should have at least expected a million. Did they haul water for only 250.000? Maybe what happened was the best possible scenario, and we should be glad only 19 people died.

30 degrees + no water + no chance to get it in that crowd could have lead to hundreds of dead.

[Fragony]

30 degrees + no water + no chance to get it in that crowd could have lead to hundreds of dead.

Abso lutely so. Already heard there is some massaging going on, files being deleted, someone screwed up badly. The more I hear the more amazed I am, especially since it's all so well taken care of in Berlin. This was a deathtrap pure and simple. That bloody tunnel being the most amazing of everything, low roof, no ventilation, thousands and thousands of people moving through they could have suffocated.

[rory_20_uk]

Seeing a picture of the grounds did strike me that there was a large area with people in surrounded by very solid walls, and then a small outlet with very solid walls.

In the event of problems the system had no ability to expand the area, merely concentrate pressure in the tunnel.

Considering the numbers, 16 deaths was relatively light.

[Husar]

Abso lutely so. Already heard there is some massaging going on, files being deleted, someone screwed up badly

Afaik the plans for the event have already been confiscated by the authorities, there's a lot of blame going around, from what I read on Facebook one of the organisers said one day prior to the parade that probably nothing will happen or something like that. Sounds like a typical case of underestimating the dangers and yes, that, unfortunately, happens in Germany, too.

Considering the numbers, 16 deaths was relatively light.

19 deaths but yes, somewhat of a low number considering how many people attended. I heard in Essen 3 people died but apparently mostly due to their own fault, when it was here it was open from all sides, a few road closures around the inner city of course but you could walk freely through the whole inner city and approach the event from all sides, why they decided to herd people into a corral in Duisburg I don't know.

[Fragony]

Afaik the plans for the event have already been confiscated by the authorities.

So the authorities didn't feel like taking a peek in advance, hard to believe. This would (or should) never have been aproved by the fire department, police and emergency services. In Berlin you can aproach the festival from all angles and can even find some nice and quiet, enough routes for said services, watercannons ready to provide some refreshement should it be needed, first aid stations everywhere, almost everything that can go wrong is taken into account.

FFS http://www.upvideo.com/upvideo_video...tkuRsriLNpHOOw

[Andres]

It seems like some are trying to escape their responsability...

There are allegations that police may have tried to cover up what happened. SPIEGEL ONLINE has learned that one office of the Federal Police erased all its documents about the Love Parade -- including orders, reports from the scene and maps -- from the computers and email accounts of its officers. "A big vacuum cleaner came round very quickly," said one officer, who believes it may have been part of a deliberate coverup.
Such reports raise questions about whether the comprehensive investigation that German President Christian Wulff had earlier announced would really take place.


A spokesman for the Federal Police said late on Sunday there had been no instruction to remove data from computers. "All documents about the operation are available and can be requested and read," he said.

Link.

[Skullheadhq]

It seems like some are trying to escape their responsability...

It's not the fault of the local government but of the event organisers. The local government didn't organise it AFAIK.

[Husar]

So the authorities didn't feel like taking a peek in advance, hard to believe.

No, the city/state/whatever attourney didn't really have to take a look in advance, but now he wants to because he is going to sue some people.