Crowds at El Salvador’s football stadium on Saturday left 12 people dead and around 90 injured, turning the much-anticipated game into chaos as fans rushed to save those suffocating under a mass of corpses. the authorities announced.
A video circulating on Twitter and released by a local news site showed dozens of people dressed in white rushing towards the exit of the stadium, some lying on the ground. More mountains are piling up.
It’s not immediately clear what swarmed the Cuscatlan stadium in San Salvador, El Salvador. There, football’s First League teams, Alianza Futbol Club and Club Deportivo FAS, were playing the second leg of the quarter-finals.
At a press conference on Saturday night, El Salvador’s national police chief said authorities were investigating a possible cause: the stadium’s Wi-Fi may have failed due to the large number of spectators attending the match. There was a problem scanning the ticket’s QR code which may have caused the accident. The ticketing issue may have led to hundreds of people getting stuck at the stadium’s south gate trying to enter, he said.
Police Chief Mauricio Arriasa Chicas said some fans forced their way into the stadium through the south gate, usually reserved for those who buy cheap tickets.
He added that it would also look into ticket sales for the games. Local media outlets have raised questions about whether tickets for the match were oversold.
Soccer games around the world have seen deadly disasters at stadiums for decades, sometimes caused by crowd violence and often exacerbated by an incompetent police response, leading to attempts to escape. The result was that the audience was crushed. Last October, at least 125 people were killed and many trampled after police fired tear gas in an attempt to disperse a crowd in Malang, Indonesia.
“Everyone will be investigated: teams, coaches, stadiums, ticket offices, leagues and federations,” El Salvador’s President Naive Bukele said in a statement.
“Whoever the culprit is, they are not going unpunished,” he said.
The commotion seems to have started about 20 minutes into the game when both teams remained tied.
In a live stream of the match posted on YouTube, commentators said there was some confusion in the stands, with some people knocked unconscious. Commentators said on the livestream that the match was suspended as fans eventually stepped onto the field.
At approximately 11 p.m. ET, authorities Said They said they were trying to make it easier for ambulances to enter and exit the stadium.
El Salvador’s Health Minister Francisco Alabi said in a statement that the country’s hospitals were providing medical care to those injured in the incident, and that workers were doing “everything humanly possible” to save lives. He added that there are. He said most of the roughly 90 injured were in stable condition.
Mr Arabi shared a photo twitter A view outside the stadium. Ambulances line up and a fan stands next to the vehicle. Nine of the victims died at the stadium and three died in hospital, officials said. Police did not immediately release their names.
a local radio station In the video released, fans can be seen waving their shirts near people on the ground, seeking coolness. There were also pictures of people sweating and crying.
It was announced by the country’s football federation. statement “We request an immediate report on what happened,” he said on Twitter, announcing that all games on Sunday have been cancelled.
Yamil Bukele, director of the Salvadorian National Institute of Sport, said in a statement that he had called a meeting on Sunday to investigate what happened.
