explained | How and why does overcrowding become fatal?

It happened at a concert in Houston, a football stadium in England, during a Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia, at a Chicago nightclub, and countless other gatherings: large crowds marched to the exit, on the playground or a Presses against the platform. The force is that people are literally put to death.

And it’s happened again, during Halloween Celebrations in Seoul, the capital of South KoreaHe was acting as a vice president in the narrow alleyway where the crowd progressed, killing more than 140 people and injuring more than 150.

The risk of such tragic accidents, which was reduced when venues were closed and people stayed home due to the COVID-19 pandemic, is back.

To be sure, most events where large crowds gather happen without injury or death, with fans coming and going without incident. But those who went horribly wrong had some common symptoms. Let’s take a look at why this happens:

How do people die in these incidents?

While movies showing crowds desperately trying to escape, suggesting that trampling may have been the cause of most deaths, the reality is that most people who die in crowds suffocate.

What cannot be seen is the forces so strong that they can bend steel. This means that what is easy to breathe becomes impossible. People die standing and those who fall die because the bodies above them put so much pressure that it becomes impossible to breathe.

“As people struggle to get up, arms and legs are twisted together. The blood supply to the brain begins to decrease,” said G. Keith Still, a visiting professor of crowd science at the University of Suffolk in England NPR After astroworld crowd surge Last November in Houston. “It takes 30 seconds before you lose consciousness, and around six minutes, you’re in compressive or restrictive asphyxia. It’s usually the responsible cause of death—not crushing, but suffocation.”

How does it feel to get carried away by people’s crushes?

Survivors tell tales of what felt like an avalanche of flesh, gasping for breath as others, desperate to escape, pounce on them. Being pinned against doors that won’t open and fences that won’t.

According to a report after a human crush in 1989 at Hillsborough Football Stadium in Sheffield, England, “survivors were described as slowly constricted, unable to move, their heads ‘locked between the arms and shoulders.. . to the death of nearly 100 Liverpool fans. “They knew people were dying and they were helpless to defend themselves.”

What triggers such events?

At a Chicago nightclub in 2003, a crowd began to grow after security guards used pepper spray to end a fight. Twenty-one people died in the crowd as a result. and this month 131 people killed in Indonesia Tear gas shells were fired at the half-timbered stadium, causing a crush on the exit.

In Nepal in 1988, football fans rushed to exit the stadium due to sudden rain, killing 93 fans. In the latest incident in South Korea, some news outlets reported that the crush happened when a large number of people arrived at a bar after hearing that it was an unknown celebrity.

But still, the British professor who testified as an expert witness in court cases involving mobs pointed to a variation of the age-old example of someone shouting “fire” in a crowded cinema hall. he told AP Last year, what lit such a crowd’s fuse for safety in America more than in any other country is the sound of someone shouting: “He has a gun!”

What role did the pandemic play?

Stadiums are filling up again. During the pandemic, as the games progressed, the teams took some creative steps to bring things back to normalcy. Cardboard figures of fans were placed on some seats and the noise of the crowd was piped in – a playing version of a comedy show laugh track.

Now, however, the mob is back, and the danger is back.

“As soon as you add people to the mix, there is always a risk,” explained Steve Allen of Crowd Safety, a UK-based consultancy engaged in major events around the world AP in 2021.