Explainer | Why crowd surges can kill people

At least eight people were killed in the US city of Houston over the weekend following a crowd surge at a music festival

Most major events happen without a death, but human crush tragedies have been happening for a long time

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Mourners lay flowers outside the cancelled Astroworld festival after at least eight people died in a crowd surge. Photo: Getty Images/AFP

Published: 12:15pm, 7 Nov 2021Updated: 12:15pm, 7 Nov 2021

The crowd deaths at a music festival in the US city of Houston over the weekend added even more names to the long list of people who have been crushed at a major event.

Tragedies like the one on Friday night at the Astroworld Music Festival have been happening for a long time. In 1979, 11 people died in a scramble to enter a Cincinnati, Ohio, concert by The Who. At the Hillsborough football stadium in England, a human crush in 1989 led to nearly 100 deaths. In 2015, a collision of two crowds at the haj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia caused more than 2,400 deaths, based on a count of media reports and officials’ comments.

Now that more people are heading out of their homes and back into crowds after many months of being cooped up because of the pandemic, the risks are rising again.

Most major events happen without a death, of course, but experts say they see common traits within the tragedies. Here’s a look at how they happen:

How are people dying?

Victims often get squeezed so hard that they cannot get any oxygen. It is usually not because they are getting trampled.