Berlin Love Parade: naff or nifty?

momus not to thread

10+ dead at this year's Love Parade in Germany, mass panic in a tunnel

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-10751899

update on ZDF: 15 dead, 150 hurt

oh shit

18, damn.

19 dead, 300 injured, 5 to 10 still critical.

This was the last ever Love Parade, organisers have announced.

Damn, what a terrible way for something with such a cool history as the parade to end.

Stayed in Duisburg next to the other end of the parade route a couple of years ago, seemed an unfairly maligned city already (it took a lot of bombing during the war because of industry and tactical river ports and now has a reputation as grim and concretey - not the prettiest or coolest town centre in Germany, to be sure, but it does have some nicer areas)

god, those poor people, RIP, whoever you are. the photos i just looked at are terrifying.

Many, many questions. The terrain was able to hold anywhere from 250,000 to 500,000 people (sometimes these wildly different numbers are mentioned in the same article, even) and the organisers had expected between 800,000 and 1 million visitors. In the end, about 1,4M showed up, but since the best estimate for the terrain's capacity and the lowest expected number of visitors was still 300,000 apart, how could anyone have greenlit this location at all? Not even thinking about that one entrance/exit tunnel here. *sadly shakes head*