Platform collapses at concert in Spain

Panic erupted at a packed music festival in northwest Spain when part of a wooden promenade suddenly collapsed, injuring more than 300 people, nine of them seriously, officials said on Monday.

The seafront platform, which measures 30m by 10m, was jammed with people watching a rap artist in the city of Vigo when part of it collapsed just before midnight on Sunday, mayor Abel Caballero told reporters.

Rescuers armed with an infrared camera combed the site for three hours to ensure no-one remained trapped underneath while divers searched the nearby sea, he said.

“Police got the people out of the area very quickly. There were two people who got trapped by debris, firefighters had to remove them and it was not easy to get them out,” he told Spanish public television TVE. It was not immediately clear what caused the collapse of the promenade, which was built in the 1990s, he said.

However, the president of Vigo’s Port Authority said he thought it was due to “excess weight, to overcapacity”.

“That is what seems the most likely cause. We are going to order an expert study to see what may have happened,” he told TVE. Local daily El Faro de Vigo said the promenade collapsed shortly after Spanish rap artist Rels B told the crowd to jump at the start of his concert.

“It was a question of five seconds,” concertgoer Aitana Alonso told the newspaper.

“The platform broke and we all fell. People landed on top of me.… My foot ended up stuck in the water but I managed to free it before a guy gave me his hand and pulled me out.”

A total of 316 people were injured, including nine seriously, the regional government of Galicia said in a statement. An earlier estimate had put the number at 266.

Those seriously wounded, including two minors, had broken bones or head injuries but their lives were not at risk, Galicia’s regional health minister, Jesus Vazquez Almuina, told Spanish public radio.