Officials seek answers in human stampede

Associated Press

DUISBURG, Germany

German prosecutors are investigating whether negligent manslaughter was involved in the deaths of 20 people killed in a crush at the Love Parade techno festival.

But amid a clamor of questions about who is to blame, they said Monday they haven’t yet identified any suspects.

The tragedy Saturday happened near a tunnel that was the only entrance to the festival grounds in the western industrial city of Duisburg. Police said 511 people were injured — one of whom succumbed to her injuries in a hospital Monday.

It remains unclear what triggered the panic, but it appears that people trying to escape the surging crowd climbed up a metal stairway in front of the tunnel and then fell into the crowd and were trampled or crushed.

“The investigations are concentrating on the allegation of negligent manslaughter and negligent bodily harm,” said Rolf Haferkamp, a spokesman for Duisburg prosecutors. “They are not directed against any concrete person at present.”

A union representing German police has blamed organizers and officials in Duisburg. But witnesses also have pointed the finger at police and private security staff, saying the panic broke out after they closed one end of a tunnel — the only entrance — when the festival grounds became too full.

Police denied that and said they actually opened a second exit to disperse the crowd before the accident happened.

At a news conference Sunday, Duisburg officials, police and the organizers provided few answers, frequently deflecting questions by noting that an investigation was under way.

The daily Tageszeitung newspaper’s sarcastic front-page headline summed up many Germans’ reaction to that: “19 dead — No one was to blame.” Berlin’s B.Z. tabloid ran a picture of the officials under the headline “Parade of Failures.”

An Italian woman who survived the trampling called it an “avoidable tragedy.”