The controversy is growing over how the stampede in the Juventus fanzone in Turin’s Piazza San Carlo was able to occur, as there were officially 1,527 injured.
Around 20,000 fans were packed into the square to watch the Champions League Final on giant screens and soon after Real Madrid’s third goal, a strange sound echoed around the area.
The controversy is growing over how the stampede in the Juventus fanzone in Turin’s Piazza San Carlo was able to occur, as there were officially 1,527 injured.
Around 20,000 fans were packed into the square to watch the Champions League Final on giant screens and soon after Real Madrid’s third goal, a strange sound echoed around the area.
It might’ve been a firework or a metal gate that fell into a subway, but just over a week after the suicide bombing at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, people feared the worst and panicked.
More details were provided by the Prefecture this morning, including the rising toll of 1,527 injured, at least three of them serious.
There are two in critical, but stable, condition – a 39-year-old woman and eight-year-old boy (who was originally reported to have been four years old).
“I fell down, around 50 people must’ve walked all over me, I don’t know how I managed to get away,” one witness told La Stampa newspaper.
“I was right by the barrier and all of a sudden I felt myself get lifted off the ground by this tsunami. It was horrific.”
The greatest concern now is how this was allowed to happen, because the vast majority of the injuries were avoidable.
Fireworks were meant to be banned from the event, yet there were several, including one that apparently sparked the stampede.
Even worse, most people were hurt by broken glass on the ground, as they were crushed on to the shards when trying to escape.
“They confiscated a bottle of water I had when trying to enter, but in the piazza there were people selling beer on the fly. There were 1-litre bottles, in the end the piazza was like a carpet of broken glass.
“I saw people fall and cut themselves. There was blood everywhere, a girl had her leg sliced wide open. I fell too and dozens of people trod on me.”
In the panic, people lost car keys, bags, shoes and were stranded in the city, unsure how to get home.
Authorities stood near the giant screens as a meeting point, reading out names through a loud-hailer to help reunite children and family members who had become separated.
This ties in with a larger problem around the policing of sporting events in Italy, as fireworks and paper bombs are banned, but in every single match there are several loud explosions caused by the ultras.