[100531] Dozens Injured In Expo Crush !!

As many as a hundred visitors to the Shanghai Expo were yesterday injured – several of them badly crushed – in a frantic scramble for tickets to a free concert.

There are fears there may also have been a fatality after hundreds of mostly teenagers tried to storm the South Korean Pavilion in the morning.

Angry fans also attacked police who were trying to keep order as huge crowds gathered near the pavilion.
A crowd of youngsters broke through the police lines, which were a short distance from the pavilion, and rushed for the building.
This, in turn, caused more people to break through.

An eyewitness told The Standard that the youngsters were crushed after officials locked people out of the pavilion.
As fans tried to push their way inside, visitors already inside the pavilion were also prevented from leaving, said the eye witness who was a volunteer helping at the South Korean Pavilion yesterday.
A girl caught in the mayhem wrote on her blog: “The ones at the front were crushed in the stampede and people behind fell on them. People were stuck face down on the ground.”
The blogger – who injured her legs – only managed to escape after some in the crowd starting yelling for people to move back.
A man in the crowd, blaming the organizers, said that more security guards should have bee
n on duty to handle the numbers. Initial reports said that one young girl was badly hurt after jumping from a stage or the second floor in the afternoon. However, this could not be confirmed at press time.
Word had spread that 5,000 tickets were available and a huge crowd gathered outside. However, an official at the pavilion said there were only 500 available.

Tickets were due to be handed in three stages starting at 9.30am.

Among the artists who were to appear at the classical and pop music concert were Korean stars Super Junior, Ahn Chil Hyun and BoA.

The event was a forerunner to one by top Japanese boy band SMAP, who are due to perform in a free concert next month.

According to the expo website, the concert started “smoothly and orderly” at 8pm. It also said more tickets were distributed to satisfy huge demand.

The six-month expo, which opened on May 1, has been plagued by crowd problems, with chaotic scenes in the first few days and in a weeklong trial run.

Source: thestandard.com
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