Another podium collapses!!

[Whitehouse]

Earlier this week five people died when a podium collapsed during the Indiana State Fair. Just an hour ago the same thing happened during Pukkelpop in Belgium. Freak thunderstoms made little work of one of the tents. On another stage Skunk Anansie had to cut off their act halfway.

First pictures sofar.

Sofar only injuries have been reported but no deaths thankfully.

Another big festival is beginning tomorrow in the Netherlands. The camping was opened today but the nasty weather is underway to that festival itself.

[Whitehouse]

Update!

Things took a major turn for the worse. At a press conference it was announced that two people died, one on the festival ground and one on the camping. 40 people have been injured. The festival was a sell out with 60000 people attending. The organisation cancelled the rest of the performances. The Foo Fighters would have been the closing act today. Tomorrow Eminem would have performed there.

The first videos appeared on youtube.




At that moment no one knew it was that serious. Hense the reactions.



BBC.
Death toll is still two.

MSNBC

Update:
Third person died.

[Whitehouse]

Update:
Sad news. Another two people died from their injuries in hospital. The festival is now completely cancelled.

[Whitehouse]

Update:

Here's a video from the performance of Skunk Anansie. This was the start of all mahem. More rain fel in 20 minutes than in a whole month.


The audience was pounded by hail stones the size of golf balls.

Look at the weather, just minutes before it started. Sunn skies.


This was the radar image above the festival. [[In Dutch)




The left audiotower, including the jumbotron, collapsed onto the two tour trucks of the band.

[Pam]

Wasn't there any type of weather warning before this hit?

[ptero]

The number of deaths as a result of the Indiana State Fair stage collapse has risen to 6. What a price to pay for poor crowd handling. Another concert some 18 miles away from the fair cancelled and cleared out the audience before the same storm hit. It was not a fluke of any kind.

[Whitehouse]

Although bad weather was predicted the rear inflow jet wasn't.

[ptero]

Whitehouse is probably be referring to the storm that hit the Pukkelpop festival that I think largely prompted this thread. This post refers to the collapse in Indiana.

The Gust Front in Indiana was predicted and visible on the radar. One of the links below has time stamped images showing the gust front at the fair location at the time of the collapse. Problem is, that detail does not show up on smartphones, which is what the fair people were watching. Images are dumbed down for the small screens.

For the sake of the crowd safety of thousands, reliance on a smartphone by personnel not trained in weather approaches criminality. Lawsuits, appropriate in my book, have begun.

The cancelled concert mentioned in post 6 had a pro service watching for them, who saw the danger approaching on better equipment that a smartphone. They advised of the danger and action was taken for the sake of crowd safety. No one died.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gust_front

http://meteorologicalmusings.blogspo...ianapolis.html

http://www.weather.com/outlook/weath...uke_2011-08-15

http://www.kktv.com/blogs/blogs/Trag...127698978.html

[Pam]

I read a post on another forum from a person who had worked as a concert stagehand. He said when they knew bad weather was approching they would lower the back drop or the roof of the stage and that would stop it getting caught in the wind.

[ptero]

A seventh person seriously injured w/the stage collapse in Indiana has passed on. Sunday the family decided to "allow to her to be at peace" due to brain injuries sustained. Her organs will be donated. Tough stuff.

http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/...s-1235919.html

[Whitehouse]

The Belgian death toll went from 5 to 4 and again to 5. An unrelated death was counted as a festival victim, but this afternoon a fifth person died in hospital from severe injuries.