In every crowd crush, there's a terrifying moment when the mood goes from a little messy to deadly.
Gaby Simeoni realised she was in grave danger at the Astroworld festival in Houston when rapper Travis Scott was three songs into his set.
"Things were getting super hectic, people were falling down, people were passing out, I was stepping on people, you could not move," she said on TikTok.
As the 50,000-strong crowd surged towards the stage, Gaby, who is just 147 centimetres tall, felt herself sucked into a pile of heaving bodies.
"I started screaming because I could not breathe," she said.
"I was at the bottom, with six or seven people on top of me … there was one point where my knee popped."
Gaby started recording from the bottom of the crush with her iPhone.
Her video is all elbows and knees. The camera fogs up from the heat of the crowd. As the men around her shout "help!" again and again, Gaby lets out a blood-curdling scream. Eventually she goes quiet as the camera is obscured by a man's back, and then fades to black.
Eight people between the ages of 14 and 27 died that night, but Gaby was not one of them.
A male friend prised her from the crowd and threw her over a railing.
"I was walking over people [who] I could not see breathing," she said.
It sounds horrifying and almost unbelievable, but it's by no means the first time lives have been lost in an out-of-control crowd. And experts have warned it won't be the last.
Crowd crushes go back to the 18th century
Historians have recorded mass deaths as a result of too many humans being packed into one place since the early 18th century.
Early records include children squeezing down a narrow hall to line up for toys, worshippers getting stuck in staircases fleeing fires, and punters clambering onto carts, lampposts and window ledges to watch executions.
In the modern era, crushes typically happen at sporting and entertainment events and religious festivals.
In what was widely described as the worst stadium disaster in football history, more than 300 people died at a Peru v Argentina match in Lima in 1964.
After spectators stormed and were attacked by police, hundreds of people trying to escape the violence were crushed when they rushed towards the exits and met corrugated steel gates.
In 1979, 11 people died in Cincinnati, Ohio, when fans tried to force their way through glass doors into The Who's show at the Riverfront Coliseum.
Fans happily ran down the concrete steps toward the stage with blood on their shoes, Rolling Stone reported.
Ten years later, at a football match at Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield, 94 Liverpool fans were crushed to death after 2,000 supporters were allowed to pile into overfull terracing pens before the match.
Thousands of pilgrims have died making their way to Mecca in multiple years since the 1990s, with many human crushes concentrated around pedestrian tunnels and bridges.
Here in Australia in 2001, 16-year-old Jessica Michalik died after being crushed in the mosh at Limp Bizkit's headline set at Big Day Out — hastily arranged after Pearl Jam dropped out, devastated at the deaths of nine of their fans at Roskilde in Denmark just seven months earlier.
But millions gather without incident at countless sporting matches, religious events and music festivals every year. So how do some become so dangerous within an instant?
The science of crowd crushes
The science of crowd crushes is frighteningly simple.
Imagine a bridge that is funnelling a crowd towards a venue. If everyone has one square metre of space to themselves, the crowd flows freely across the bridge.
Even at two people per square metre, it's pretty comfortable.
But once the density of a crowd hits four people per square metre, it becomes difficult to take full paces forward.
By five people per square metre, the mood starts to change.
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The crowd is packed tightly, the risk of falls increases, and those at the front must keep moving as quickly as those behind them or they risk being pushed over.
"At occupancies of about seven persons per square metre, the crowd becomes almost a fluid mass," John J Fruin wrote in a 1993 study called The Causes and Prevention of Crowd Disaster.
At this point, the risk of a shock wave or a "crowd quake" becomes very real, and potentially lethal.
Aerial footage of a 2005 Oasis concert shows the crowd quakes spreading through the audience like ripples on a pond.
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"Shock waves can be propagated through the mass sufficient to lift people off of their feet and propel them distances of three metres or more," Dr Fruin wrote.
"People may be literally lifted out of their shoes, and have clothing torn off. Intense crowd pressures, exacerbated by anxiety, make it difficult to breathe."
The force of a crowd crush is enough to bend steel.
Most people aren't trampled. They simply run out of oxygen as they become entombed in a mass of bodies.
"Within the first 30 seconds of the first song, people began to drown — in other people," wrote Seanna Faith, another fan who got swallowed into the crush at Astroworld.
Factors like extreme heat can make things worse. People faint standing up, but can't fall to the ground to allow blood to start flowing to the brain again.
Once people collapse, those further back start to trample over or fall in on top of them, creating a "sinkhole of bodies" like the ones Astroworld crowds reported.
"One person fell, or collapsed, it doesn't matter how it started. Once one fell, a hole opened up in the ground. It was like watching a Jenga Tower topple. Person after person were sucked down," Ms Faith wrote on Instagram.
Researchers say what triggers these crowd crushes can generally be categorised as either: flight response — reaction to a perceived threat like inclement weather or someone shouting "fire"; or craze — that competitive rush towards something desirable, like rock stars or free food.
Crowd crushes might seem like the cost of human assembly. Religious gatherings, music and sport are vital to many.
While the risk can never be eliminated, experts say good event management and venue design can save lives.
Safety management to prevent such disasters
While the investigation into the disaster at Astroworld is still in its infancy, crowd safety experts say they spotted red flags in videos of the festival.
Dr Aldo Raineri is an expert in public safety and behavioural risks at music festivals with the University of Central Queensland.
"When you get thousands of people packed into a small space, invariably, what happens is you've got people at the front pressed up against a barrier to stop them from getting onto the stage," he said.
"People get wedged between the barrier and other people behind them to the point where they simply can't move. And in fact, as appears to have happened here, they get literally crushed to death."
Simple measures can reduce the risk, according to Dr Raineri.
Controlling the flow of alcohol, putting up big video screens of the main stage, and corralling people into smaller spaces can keep events from spiralling out of control.
"Crowd monitoring is pretty important. You can monitor from above or use CCTV, and there are programs you can get now that look at density within bodies of people," he said.
In the wake of Jessica Michalik's death at Big Day Out in 2001, a coronial inquest found organisers had not done enough to prevent a dangerous crush from breaking out.
The inquest found crowd density was a problem, and made several recommendations for improving safety at music festivals.
Big Day Out brought in new safety measures including a D-barrier to create space between the mosh and the rest of the crowd.
"Ever since the fatality at the Big Day Out, Australian promoters have been onto it," Dr Raineri said.
"In Australia, some promoters are more conscious of safety — probably more so [than] in the US, which is still a little bit wild west."
Performers also have a role to play. The inquiry into Jessica's death found Limp Bizkit lead singer Fred Durst's comments as the crowd began to surge were "alarming and inflammatory".
At one point Durst told the crowd: "Looks like we've got a little problem down the front. I told them before we came, put Limp Bizkit and 60,000 Aussies in one place, and this motherf*****'s gonna go crazy."
Critics are now questioning whether Travis Scott ignored pleas for help or encouraged violence at Astroworld, and some fans have already begun legal action.
"Some performers incite the crowd, there's no question about that," Dr Raineri said.
"They incite the crowd to rush the barriers, smash the security. But I've also seen some bands who are very concerned and don't want to see incidents."
Houston police are still investigating the Astroworld disaster, and civil lawsuits have been filed against Travis Scott and organisers.
Dr Raineri said at any event, the onus is on performers and promoters to keep fans safe.
"It is their responsibility, both legally and morally as well," he said.
Many online have also questioned whether the Astroworld crowds had the same approach to 'mosh etiquette' and the long-established golden rules of the metal, punk and hardcore scenes.
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Studies have shown in crowds where there's a common group identity, people tend to feel safer even if they are tightly packed and slow moving.
Researchers say it is imperative that organisers consider this aspect of crowd psychology in planning events, assessing risk and managing densely packed venues when things go wrong.
Australian event organisers will no doubt be closely monitoring the conversations around what went wrong at Astroworld as they prepare to bring back music festivals post-COVID.
Julia Robinson from the Australian Festival Association told Hack, ultimately, you need experienced crew on the ground to monitor the crowds and step in at the first signs of trouble.
"It's one thing that we we have missed for the last few years, we just don't know how crowds have changed," she said.
"So it's really important to watch what's happening, [and to have] really good crew on the ground, experienced security guards and first aid that know what they're doing."
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiY2h0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmFiYy5uZXQuYXUvbmV3cy8yMDIxLTExLTEwL2Nyb3dkLWNydXNoLWhpc3RvcnktYWZ0ZXItdHJhdmlzLXNjb3R0cy1hc3Ryb3dvcmxkLzEwMDYwMzYzONIBKGh0dHBzOi8vYW1wLmFiYy5uZXQuYXUvYXJ0aWNsZS8xMDA2MDM2Mzg?oc=5
2021-11-09 19:27:07Z
CAIiEMgDSLXJ5r1mxY68rPnEoLIqFwgEKg4IACoGCAow3vI9MPeaCDD7kIkG
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