Six dead, dozens hurt in Italy nightclub stampede

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CORINALDO, Italy, Dec 8, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Six people, including five
teenagers, died and dozens were injured in a stampede when panic broke out
during a rap concert at an Italian nightclub early Saturday.

The suspected use of a pepper spray-like substance is thought to have
sparked the chaos at the venue in the town of Corinaldo, near Ancona in
central Italy.

“The cause may have been the dispersal of a stinging substance, the young
people fled and trampled over each other. Sadly, six people died and dozens
are injured,” the fire service said in a statement on Twitter.

The victims include five people under the age of 18 — three girls and two
boys – and an adult woman who accompanied her daughter to the concert.

Seven people are in a critical condition, doctors said, with at least 50
injured in total.

As the crowd panicked, people ran for the three emergency exits, one of
which led to a small bridge and the car park.

The force of the fleeing crowd made a railing collapse and dozens of
people fell, crushing those at the bottom of the pile, according to a
preliminary investigation.

Grainy mobile phone footage appeared to show part of a walkway collapsing,
sending dozens of people tumbling down.

Ironically, those who remained inside the nightclub were unharmed.

“We were dancing and waiting for the concert to start when we smelt this
pungent odour,” a 16-year-old boy who was taken to hospital told the media.

“We ran to one of the emergency exits but we found it blocked, the
bouncers told us to go back.”

– ‘You can’t die like that!’ –

A pile of abandoned shoes testified to the chaos of the stampede, with
survivors and the bereaved weeping outside the nightclub as emergency
vehicles tended to the injured, local newspaper Ancona Today reported.

“It can’t be! You can’t die like that. Wake up Mattia, I beg you,” one
unnamed woman cried as she knelt by her son’s body, the paper said.

Around 1,000 people — many of them young — were in the Lanterna Azzurra
(Blue Lantern) club for a performance by Italian rapper Sfera Ebbasta, known
as “the king of the trap” for his style of Hip Hop.

“I’m deeply saddened by what happened,” Ebbasta said on Instagram.

“I don’t want to pass judgement on who is responsible, but I would just
like to ask everyone to stop and think how dangerous and stupid it can be to
use pepper spray in a nightclub,” he said, cancelling all his upcoming
promotional events.

Pope Francis said during Saturday’s Angelus prayers that he would pray for
“the children and the mother who died last night… as well as for the
injured.”

The Ancona public prosecutor and police are trying to establish how many
people were in the venue at the time of the stampede, with media reporting
many more people inside than the authorised maximum of 871.

The accident happened at around 1 am (0000 GMT).

The injured were taken to hospital in the nearby town of Senigallia and
the most serious on to Ancona.

“You can’t die like this at 15,” said far-right Interior Minister Matteo
Salvini, promising to “find those responsible for these six broken lives,
those who through wickedness, stupidity or greed turned a festive evening
into a tragedy.”

His anti-immigrant League party was to hold a minute’s silence during a
previously planned rally in Rome on Saturday morning.

In 2017, a woman died and 1,500 were injured in a crush during the outdoor
broadcast in Turin of a Champions League football match final when rumours of
a bombing sparked panic.

Around 30,000 people had gathered in June last year to watch the broadcast
from Cardiff, Wales, of the local team Juventus play Real Madrid when pepper
spray was shot into the crowd as part of a robbery attempt.

Erika Pioletti, 38, died two weeks later after being left in a coma by the
crush. She had gone to watch the game in the square with her boyfriend.

Eight people were arrested on suspicion of causing the scramble by
dispersing the irritating substance.