Disaster struck on the Medusa Festival within the city of Cullera close to Valencia at 4:18 a.m. native time “resulting from a powerful gust of wind,” they mentioned.
The man killed was 22 years outdated, the Spanish Civil Guard advised CNN.
The Civil Guard, Spain’s paramilitary police unit that’s in control of the investigation, additionally mentioned there was extra harm than simply the partial collapse of the stage.
“Due to a powerful gust of wind, the principle entrance and the principle stage of the Medusa Festival in Cullera fell to the bottom,” a spokesperson in Valencia advised CNN.
There have been about 50,000 folks on the competition web site when the incident occurred, it mentioned, including that it took 40 minutes to evacuate folks from the competition, with the exit doorways functioning correctly.
Ximo Puig, president of the Valencia regional authorities, provided condolences to the sufferer’s household and buddies in a Saturday tweet.
“A horrible accident that shocks all of us. I need to lengthen my deepest condolences to the household and buddies of the younger man who died early this morning on the Medusa Festival in Cullera,” Puig mentioned.
Early Saturday morning, competition administration introduced on Instagram that they’d suspended the competition “resulting from inclement climate… with the goal of guaranteeing the safety of the concert-goers, employees and artists gathered on the Medusa Festival.
Later Saturday, organizers formally canceled the competition, saying that the “opposed and sudden climate circumstances which might be anticipated to proceed all through the day oblige us morally and out of accountability to place an finish to our 2022 version.”
“It is a day of mourning. And respect for these affected,” organizers mentioned in a press release posted to social media, including: “Our ideas continuously are for each a kind of affected, immediately or not directly, by the unlucky, sudden and unavoidable accident.”
Videos posted on social media early Saturday confirmed sturdy winds and buildings falling from the stage as massive crowds of competition attendees have been evacuated.
The Valencia part of Spain’s nationwide climate service (AEMET) mentioned on Twitter that heat breezes have been producing very sturdy gusts of wind and abrupt will increase in temperature.
Around 3 a.m. native time, the temperature was a blistering 40.5 Celsius (104.9 levels Fahrenheit) on the Alicante-Elche airport, simply south of the live performance web site, on the Mediterranean coast — with winds measuring 82 kilometers (round 50 miles) per hour.
Temperatures have been hovering throughout Europe with droughts declared in a number of components of England and wildfires in France.