1 Introduction
2 Overview of the situation
2.1 History of the Love Parade
2.2 Description of the festival area
Time | Expected inflow/h | Expected outflow/h |
---|---|---|
14:00-15:00 | 55,000 | 10,000 |
15:00-16:00 | 55,000 | 50,000 |
16:00-17:00 | 55,000 | 45,000 |
17:00-18:00 | 90,000 | 55,000 |
12:02 | The festival area is opened. Visitors can enter the area via the access control points from East and West via the tunnel. |
13:00 | The inflow is reduced by closing 10 of 16 isolating devices, both on the East and West entrance towards the tunnel. |
13:45-14:15 | No important disturbances or queues of visitor flows occur in the entry area. |
Around 14:00 | Official start of the Love Parade. |
14:15-14:30 | The concentration of visitors increases at the end of the entrance ramp towards the festival area (due to obstructions by ‘floats’, i.e. moving music trucks). |
14:30-15:15 | The crowd manager tries to order support by the police. The organizer states that the person responsible for connecting to the police (the ‘liaison officer’) did not have a working walkie talkie or mobile phone. |
14:30-15:06 | The visitor flow on the ramp and from the West increases. |
Around 15:00 | Reduction of the visitor flow by closing as many isolating devices as possible. |
15:12-15:34 | Change of police shifts.63 5 police cars drive into the ramp area. |
15:31 | Visitors ignore the fence on the side of the main ramp, following police forces, who have temporarily opened it. Shortly later, visitors overcome fences also on the other side of the ramp, which should prevent them from taking the steep slope up to the festival area. |
15:50 | A first chain of police forces (police cordon) is formed in front of the side ramp, blocking in- and outflows in the West (see cordon 1a in Figure 1).64 |
15:50-15:57 | A second police cordon closes the tunnel to the East (see cordon 2 in Figure 1). |
Around 16:02 | There is a sudden strong visitor flow towards the festival area from the West. The first police cordon is moved behind the side ramp (see cordon 1b in Figure 1). |
From 16:02 | Police forces start to control the flows to (and from) the festival area in the middle of the ramp (where the ramp is narrowest due to some fences).65 Queues start to form on both sides of the resulting bottleneck.66 |
Around 16:06 | There are just a few visitors between the three police cordons. |
Around 16:07 | A jam of visitors forms in the West part of the tunnel. |
Around 16:09 | A jam of visitors forms above the chain of police forces on the ramp, when trying to exit the festival area. |
16:12-16:28 | The third police cordon is completed (see cordon 3 in Figure 1). It stops the in- and outflows completely, where the fences narrow down the ramp. |
Around 16:13 | The small ramp is opened as entrance to the festival area. Visitors climb over fences. |
Around 16:14 | The second police cordon in the East opens up, and visitors enter the area of the big ramp from below.67 |
Around 16:17 | First visitors try to enter the festival area via a narrow staircase connecting the lower part of the ramp with the festival area on top.68 Afterwards, the staircase is blocked by two security people.69 |
Around 16:21 | The first police cordon in the West dissolves.19,70 The previously waiting visitors move towards the ramp and encounter there the dense flow of visitors coming from the East. |
16:22 | First people climb the pole.19,71 |
16:22-16:24 | The third police cordon still keeps the ramp closed, while the pressure increases from both sides (i.e. inflow and outflow). |
16:24-16:28 | The third police cordon is dissolved.72 |
Around 16:27 | The narrow staircase is used by people to get up to the festival area.73 Someone climbs on top of a traffic sign.74 |
16:31-16:37 | A fourth police cordon is formed in the upper area of the ramp.75 At the same time, the density in the lower area of the ramp increases steadily. |
After 16:40 | The situation gets out of control. More and more visitors try to get up to the festival area via the small staircase, the pole and a container (used by the crowd management, located at the lower end of the ramp in the South). |
2.3 Expert report by Prof. Dr. G. Keith Still
2.4 Timeline
8:03 | The police receive an e-mail informing them about the official approval of the Love Parade.19 |
Until 12:00 | The construction work (leveling work) of a bulldozer on the festival ground takes longer than planned and delays the opening of the festival for approximately one hour.21 |
13:33 | 20,000 techno fans are waiting in the West and are creating a lot of pressure to get in.21,76 |
13:44 | The police are worried that the access point may be overrun.21 |
Around 14:00 | A police officer asks the crowd management to make a loudspeaker announcement, but this cannot be done, because there is no working loudspeaker equipment despite requirements to have one.21 |
After 14:03 | Visitors are obstructed by floats (music trucks), while trying to enter the festival area from the ramp.21,77 |
14:42 | The obstruction by the floats on the festival area causes a jam of arriving visitors on the ramp almost up to the tunnel.21 |
14:52 | For some time, it is not possible to enter the festival area from the ramp.19 |
15:06 | The minister of interior visits the crisis management team.19 |
15:30-18:00 | Mobile phones do not work due to an overload of the mobile phone networks.21 |
From 15:31 | Visitors start to climb the slope in the West of the main ramp and one minute later in the East to get to the festival area.78 |
Around 16:00 | Turmoil and critical crowd conditions occur in front of the access points. A policeman instructs the crowd management to open the access point in the West.21 The access point in the East is intermittently opened to reduce the pressure in the crowd.21 |
16:31 | A fence at the West side of the tunnel is opened to allow an emergency vehicle to enter. Hundreds of visitors make use of the occurring gap to enter the tunnel.6 |
Around 16:30 | Visitors overcome fences in the tunnel.79 |
16:35-16:43 | People scream for help and shout at others they should hurry up; some seem to panic, but others try to calm them down; the situation changes quickly: people change between screaming and laughing; some people manage to climb the staircase, but there is still no continuous flow of people on the staircase.80 People scream they are about to die.81 The traffic sign is already bent.82 People shout from above that those on the narrow staircase should move on.83 |
Around 16:36 | Crowd turbulence and critical situation around the pole.84 |
Starting 16:38 | Police are limiting the number of people on the staircase (usually 2 or 3 at a time), but make sure that people do not stop on the staircase.85 |
Around 16:40 | An unconscious women is passed on to the narrow staircase and elevated up.86 A sparse, slowly moving crowd in the tunnel moves towards the festival area.87 |
Starting approx. 16:40 | Police cars in the city make loudspeaker announcements that the festival area is completely full and will not be accessible to further visitors anymore until the end of the day.88 |
Around 16:44 | Some people climb a pole and the narrow staircase next to the ramp (see Figure 1). Several people try to elevate themselves from the crowd by climbing a billboard. Many seem to be in trouble between the staircase and the tunnel.89 |
16:47 | Interview with the Love Parade organizer, who does not seem to be aware how critical the situation is.60 |
Around 16:48 | A command is given to stop inflows to the tunnel and the ramp area completely. It is executed within minutes.21 Sound of police sirens; some people have fallen to the ground and raise their hands into the air for help.90 |
Around 16:50 | An emergency vehicle is entering the ramp area through the tunnel and opens its sliding door. An interaction between the crowd and people in the emergency vehicle takes place. The trouble between the staircase and tunnel is becoming more and more serious.91 A video from the West looking down on the crowd shows shockwaves in the crowd. Police forces are having a hard time holding a fence back at the container, which is used by the crowd management.92 |
Starting 16:53 | The emergency vehicle stops in the middle of the crowd. Strong shock waves occur all over the crowd and push people to the ground between tunnel and staircase.93 Arms are lifted up and people are screaming. A group of people is aggressively pushing their way towards the tunnel (see endnote93 between minutes 1:28 and 1:35). Some people are crawling on top of others to get towards the staircase. A helicopter flies overhead. Someone fixes a rope above the tunnel to allow people to climb up.93,94 |
16:54-17:03 | Some people get pulled up to the narrow staircase. A ladder is lowered down to the container at the South end of the ramp, and a woman, who seems to be hurt, is lying down on the container.95,96 |
Starting 16:57 | People are pulled up one by one via the container.97 People in the crowd are being pushed around. A few people climb onto other people, trying to get out of the crowd. A woman is screaming loudly.98 |
Starting 16:58 | The situation is extremely crowded. Some people scramble up the narrow staircase. Many people yell for help.99 |
Starting 16:59 | More people are pulled up from the crowded container to the festival area above. Security guards and police walk along the East side. A police officer is filming.100 An ambulance car is approaching on the freeway in the West. |
Starting 17:01 | View of emergency forces near the staircase area.101 |
Starting 17:02 | People scramble up the stairs. Many people are yelling for help. The situation is extremely crowded. Police attempt to control the crowd.102 |
17:02 | First victims are reported on the ramp.6,19 |
Starting 17:03 | The stairs are clearing slightly, and some people are able to get up.103 |
Starting 17:03 | A man is trying to grab people and pull them up on the South over the container. Police holds the fence back. An orange ladder is used to get people out from the container.104 |
Around 17:04 | Seven policemen are talking to a few people. Two are helping someone on the ground.105 |
Starting 17:05 | A view from the tunnel shows some people climbing up over the container, also with the help of ropes. It seems that people in the tunnel behind are still reasonably fine. Some of them appear to be dancing.106 |
Starting 17:05 | More people are able to get up via the staircase. The density in the ramp area is reduced, and the police are turning around some people at the back of the crowd, who are still trying to get to the stairs.107 |
Starting 17:05 | A crowd of people has fallen in front of the stairs, raising their arms up. Some rescue workers and festival attendees are pulling people out. One policeman tries to hold back the crowd. An emergency vehicle is guided to the ramp area by the police, coming from the East tunnel.108 |
Starting 17:07 | The stairs are still crowded. Someone is shouting for help by the police. Some policemen on the stairs help people up.109 |
Starting 17:08 | Someone is yelling at the police.110 People are pulled out of the fallen crowd, and some receive first aid. The crowd below the staircase seems ‘cleared’ by the end of the video, and there is a considerable amount of police and rescue forces.111 |
Starting 17:08 | People can be seen lying on top of each other. The situation is still crowded, but the density eventually reduces.112 |
Starting 17:09 | The situation continues to be crowded, but people are starting to move more smoothly up the stairs. The area around the fallen people empties.113 |
17:15 | The operation room of the city of Duisburg does not seem to be aware of the critical situation. It still calls the Love Parade a big success.114 |
Starting 17:16 | The situation on the ramp has cleared up, but the group of fallen people still seems to be without professional help. A rescue crew appears in the South-West corner. A person is lying unconsciously on the ground. Many people try to resuscitate others. Fallen visitors are pulled out of the pile of people.115 |
Around 17:20 | The crowd has mostly dissolved. Fire and ambulance cars are parked in the South of the ramp. A woman tries to provide first aid to a man in the South-West corner. At least 2 other people provide first aid to people on the ground.116 |
Around 18:00 | It is decided not to terminate the Love Parade to avoid further critical situations (by evacuating the festival area too quickly).6,19,117 |
3 Contributing factors
3.1 Did the crowd panic?
3.2 Were people killed by others falling on them from above?
3.3 Did the staircase cause a crowd crush?
3.4 Occurrence of crowd turbulence
4 Causal interdependencies
4.1 Failure of flow control
4.2 A lack of overview of everybody
14:27-15:05, 15:55-17:00 | Queues of arriving visitors form at the upper end of the main ramp, which leads to the festival area. For this case it was planned (1) to use ‘pushers’ in order to make the people move forward, (2) to close the access points in the East and West in front of the tunnels, (3) to make loudspeaker announcements [pp.20+13]. |
15:16 | The crowd manager asks for police support via the liaison officer [p.31]. |
Around 15:30 | The relevant police officer arrives at the container of the crowd manager [p.31]. |
15:30-15:40 | Crowd manager and this police officer jointly decide (1) to ask crowd management/security staff to work as ‘pushers’ in order to ensure a better inflow into the festival area from the upper end of the ramp, (2) to close the access points for approximately 10 minutes, (3) to form a cordon in the middle of the ramp in order to shield visitors trying to enter the festival area from behind [pp.20+31]. |
15:45 | In the discussion with other police officers, this plan is modified towards forming 2 police cordons in the tunnels to the West and to the East [p.22]. |
15:50-16:20 | Police cordon 1 is formed in the tunnel in the West (first before the side ramp and then after it from 16:02 on in order to allow people to use the side ramp) [p.21]. |
15:57-16:16 | Police cordon 2 is formed in the tunnel in the East [p.21]. |
16:01-16:24 | A third police cordon is formed in the middle of the ramp in order to avoid that visitor flows returning from the Love Parade would undermine police cordons 1 and 2 from behind [p.21+22]. |
Around 16:10 | When arriving at the relevant area of the ramp, the responsible officer discovers that (1) many people are trying to leave the festival area and (2) the expected dissolution of the jam at the upper end of the ramp did not happen within the 10 minute time period foreseen for this. Therefore, the blockage of the inflows by cordons 1 and 2 must be maintained longer than planned. Due to this delay and since the access points must be intermittently opened, the pressure on police cordons 1 and 2 becomes so high that they must be given up [p.23]. |
16:24 | Visitors are jammed up on both sides of police cordon 3. The situation becomes extremely crowded [p.24]. Therefore, police cordon 3 is dissolved, also because it is ‘ineffective’ between two oppositely directed flows [pp.24+34]. |
16:31 | A new (transparent) police cordon is formed at the upper end of the ramp from 16:31 on [pp.21+24]. It serves to stop the outflow of leaving visitors via the main ramp and to encourage arriving visitors to use the slopes to enter the festival area (see Figure 1).5,156 [pp.24+34] |
16:39 | The fire brigade reports ‘panic-like’ movements on the ramp with some over-run people [p.25]. |
16:40-16:55 | The festival area is closed for newly arriving visitors (by moving vehicles in front of the access points) [pp.25+35]. |
After evacuation of ramp area | Some densely crowded spots remain around the container, two poles and the narrow staircase. It is not possible to redirect them by words or gestures [pp.34+35] |
5 Discussion
5.1 Resilience, systemic instabilities, and cascading effects
5.2 What caused the crowd disaster: causal interdependencies of contributing factors
5.3 What might have stopped the feedback and cascading effects
6 Lessons to be learned and recommendations
6.1 Summary
6.2 Some common misconceptions
6.3 Conclusion and ‘natural laws’ of crowd behavior
6.4 Advance warning signs of crowd disasters
Observation | Assessment | Required action | |
---|---|---|---|
0 | Densities are below 2-3 persons per square meter. | Normal operation at low risk. | Regularly verify normal operation, watch out for perturbations. Make sure that the flow does not exceed the safe value of 82 persons per minute and meter. |
1 | People accumulate. Certain areas become progressively more crowded. | People slow down due to a bottleneck or stop for some reason. | Limit inflows to ensure that the expected extent of accumulation will not be exceeded. Gather information and determine the reasons for the accumulation. Prepare possible counter-measures. Move enough security to the respective area. Inform the responsible police and emergency units. |
2 | Jams of people are forming and growing. | Insufficient outflows may cause serious problems over time (such as high densities), particularly in constraint spaces. | Communicate with the crowd. Promptly take appropriate flow reduction measures such as re-directing people. (Keep in mind that stopping people causes a growing pressure in the crowd and impatience.) Move police and emergency units towards the crowded area(s) in case help will be needed. |
3 | Stop-and-go waves occur (this happens only in dense moving crowds). People are pushed. | The continuous flow has broken down. The outflow capacity is considerably reduced. The situation may escalate quickly. | Take suitable counter-measures. Pressure relief strategies (such as opening emergency routes and re-routing inflows) should be taken and people informed about them. Before, any obstacles (such as fences) in the way must be removed. A sufficient number of emergency units and police must be in the critical area and ready take over control in interaction with the crowd management. |
4 | People cannot move freely and are squeezed between others. People are pushed around. | A critical density has built up in the crowd. Injuries can easily happen. | Police should take over control in close consultation with the crowd management. Appropriate contingency plans must be applied. Evacuation is strongly advised. Communication with the crowd is crucial. Emergency forces must be in the most crowded areas, in order to provide first aid whenever needed. |
5 | People disrespect fences or try to get out of the area. | The situation is critical and likely to get out of control. | Communicate with the crowd and evacuate it. Provide help and first aid. Inform hospitals and additional emergency units about the possibility that the situation may get out of control. |
6 | Crowd turbulence occurs. People scream or shout for help. | Injuries and fatalities are likely. A crowd disaster can happen any time. | Calm down the crowd and guide it. Continue to evacuate people. Watch out for the areas with the highest densities and largest crowd movements, to ensure support and first aid. Additional emergency vehicles must be called to ensure sufficient manpower, and hospitals must be informed about likely (and potentially many) injuries. |
7 | People are falling to the ground. People raise arms into the air. | People are in big trouble. Many injuries are to be expected. A crowd disaster is (most likely) happening. | Immediate help and first aid are needed, probably for many people. Hospitals must be prepared to shift from routine to large-scale emergency operation. |
8 | People crawl over others. | A crowd disaster has probably happened. | Apply rules for a state of serious emergency. |