Festival deaths manslaughter inquiry

The 21-year-old German woman died in hospital. She was among those crushed at the Love Parade techno festival in the German city of Duisburg on Saturday. Another 342 people were injured.

Prosecutors' spokesman Rolf Haferkamp said that investigations at Duisberg, near Dusseldorf, centre on suspicions of negligent manslaughter and negligent bodily harm.

The Love Parade was once a Berlin institution, but was held for the last time in the capital in 2006 after suffering from financial problems.

A Love Parade event was also held in Roundhay Park, Leeds, in 2000, sponsored by BBC Radio 1, which attracted over 200,000 people. The organisers went on to hold events all over the world.

An attempt to hold one in the streets of Newcastle upon Tyne in 2001 was cancelled after the police refused a licence and it never returned to the UK.

The event started rotating around the cities of the Ruhr in 2007 but organisers have said it will never be held again.

As many as 1.4 million people had turned up when mass panic erupted on Saturday.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has promised an "intense" investigation into the circumstances while prosecutors' spokesman Rolf Haferkamp said yesterday that investigations at Duisburg, near Dusseldorf in northern Germany, were centred on suspicions of negligent manslaughter and negligent bodily harm.

Police blamed organisers and officials in Duisburg, an industrial city that gave the world's largest techno music festival a home after it was driven from Berlin because of noise and overcrowding.

Witnesses, however, blamed police and private security staff, saying the panic broke out after they closed the only entrance when the venue became too full.

Police denied the claim and said they actually opened a second exit to disperse the masses before the accident happened.

Throngs of techno fans had followed the floats, dancers and the throbbing music to the festival venue – an old freight railway station that local media estimated could handle 300,000 people.

It remained unclear what exactly triggered the panic but it appeared that several people trying to escape the crowds climbed up a steep metal stairway on a ramp in front of the tunnel and fell into the crowd.

Amateur video footage showed thousands of festival-goers crammed wall to wall, some trying desperately to climb out.

Police said no one was killed inside the tunnel itself.

Since the event was free, even the number of people who attended may never be known. Police did not confirm the 1.4 million estimate and suggested it was much lower based on the fact the railway service registered 105,000 as arriving in the city by train.

Love Parade organiser Rainer Schaller said the event would never be

held again out of respect for the victims.

"The Love Parade was always a peaceful event and a happy party," but would forever be overshadowed by the tragedy, he said.

Mrs Merkel expressed shock at the "horrible, sad" turn of events.

"I think we need an intense investigation now into how this happened," she said in Bayreuth, where she was attending the opening of the yearly Wagner music festival. She added: "We must do everything to prevent this from being repeated."

Pope Benedict XVI said he learned of the tragedy in his native Germany "with profound pain" and said he was praying for the victims.

Police said the dead were aged between 18 and 38 and included Spaniards, an Australian, an Italian, a Bosnian, a Chinese citizen and a person from Holland.