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A witness to the Love Parade stampede breaks down in tears after the horror. AchimH via Flickr
Tragedy

Love Parade 'will never be held again' after stampede

Mobile phone footage reveals the carnage of Duisberg.

NINETEEN PEOPLE are now confirmed to have died, and 340 injured, after a massive stampede at a massive techno music festival in Germany.

Survivors of the horror – at the entrance of the world-famous and free-to-enter Love Parade festival, held this year in Duisberg, said they had warned the police of overcrowding and criticised the decision of local authorities to have just one entrance.

Such was the scale of the injuries that the festival’s organiser has declared there will be no more Love Parades in future, as a mark of respect to those who had died.

Rainer Schiller said the Parade “has always been a joyful and peaceful party, but in future would always be overshadowed by yesterday’s events.

“Out of respect for the victims, their families and friends, we are going to discontinue the event in the future, and that means the end of the Love Parade.”

Police chiefs later said they had warned city authorities a year ago that Duisberg was not an appropriate venue for an event of such a size.

Earlier, amateur footage shot with a mobile phone camera emerged on YouTube and showed the carnage in the aftermath of the ‘mass panic’.

City mayor Adolf Sauerland has ordered a full inquiry into the cause of the stampede.