German police say 15 people killed, 15 injured in mass panic at Love Parade

15 killed in mass panic at Germany’s Love Parade

BERLIN — German police have raised the death toll to 15 in a stampede inside a tunnel crowded with techno music fans. Police say dozens more were injured.

Police originally said 10 people were killed but later reported 5 more fatalities at the Love Parade on Saturday in the western German city of Duisburg.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

BERLIN (AP) — A stampede inside a tunnel crowded with techno music fans crushed 10 people to death at Germany’s famed Love Parade festival on Saturday.

Thousands of other revelers keep partying at the event in Duisberg, near Duesseldorf, unaware of the deadly stampede that started when police tried to block thousands of people from entering the already-jammed parade grounds.

Police are still trying to determine exactly what happened, but the situation was “very chaotic,” police commissioner Juergen Kieskemper said.

He said police closed off the area where the parade was being held because it was already over-crowded. They told revelers over loudspeakers to turn around and walk back in the direction they had come from before the panic broke out, he said.

German news agency DAPD reported the victims were crushed in the large tunnel leading to the event site and that emergency workers had trouble getting to them.

The party continued after the accident, with many of the other participants unaware of the stampede, news station n-tv reported.

The Love Parade was once an institution in Berlin, but has been held in the industrial Ruhr region of western Germany since 2007.

The original Berlin Love Parade grew from a 1989 peace demonstration into a huge outdoor celebration of club culture that drew about 1.5 million people at its peak in 1999. But it suffered from financial problems and tensions with city officials in later years, and eventually moved.