MADRID: Panic erupted at a packed seaside music festival in northwest Spain when part of a wooden promenade suddenly collapsed, injuring more than 300 people, nine of them seriously, officials said Monday.
The seafront platform, measuring 30 meters by 10 meters (100 foot by 30 foot), was jammed with people watching a rap artist in the city of Vigo when part of it collapsed just before midnight on Sunday, mayor Abel Caballero told reporters.
Rescuers armed with an infrared camera combed the site for three hours to ensure no one remained trapped underneath while divers searched offshore, he said.
“Police got the people out of the area very quickly. There were two people who got trapped by debris, firefighters had to remove them and it was not easy to get them out,” Caballero told Spanish public television TVE.
The president of Vigo’s Port Authority said he thought the structure, built in the 1990s, collapsed due to “excess weight, to overcapacity.”
“That is what seems the most likely cause,” he told TVE but added: “We are going to order an expert study to see what may have happened,.”
Local daily El Faro de Vigo said the structure collapsed shortly after Spanish rap artist Rels B told the crowd to jump at the start of his concert.
“The floor gave way beneath us as if we were in an elevator. It was a question of five seconds,” concert-goer Aitana Alonso told the newspaper.
“The platform broke and we all fell. People landed on top of me. I tried to get out and couldn’t. My foot ended up stuck in the water but I managed to free it before a guy gave me his hand and pulled me out,” she said.
“There were people underneath me, shouting that they couldn’t get out.”
A total of 316 people were injured, including nine seriously, the regional government of Galicia said in a statement.
An earlier estimate had put the number at 266.
Most suffered light injuries, mainly bruises.
Those seriously wounded, including two minors, had broken bones or head injuries but their lives were not at risk, Galicia’s regional health minister Jesus Vazquez Almuina told Spanish public radio.
“It was the worst moment of my life,” said Andres, a young man who was in the VIP area, telling El Faro de Vigo he saw “people crying, others running.”
In a Twitter message, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez expressed his “solidarity with the injured,” wishing them a prompt recovery.
The head of regional government of Galicia, Alberto Nunez Feijoo, said it was “chilling to see how that entire area collapsed.”
“The injured, their families, need an explanation,” he told journalists during a visit to a Vigo hospital which treated victims of the accident.
The concert was part of Vigo’s three-day O Marisquino festival, which combines music with competitive sporting events, like skateboarding and mountain biking.
The annual festival, which bills itself as the “most important urban sports event in southern Europe,” draws some 160,000 people to Vigo, a city of around 300,000 residents.
Festival organizers said they “profoundly regretted” the accident and stressed in a statement that the concerts they put on “met the security requirements required by law.”
Hundreds hurt as Spain festival promenade collapses
Hundreds hurt as Spain festival promenade collapses
- The seafront platform was jammed with people watching a rap artist
- Part of it collapsed just before midnight on Sunday
Palestinian woman hospitalized following seizure in US ICE detention
- Kordia, a 33-year-old Muslim Palestinian woman living in the US and whose mother is an American citizen, was detained by US immigration authorities early last year
WASHINGTON: A Palestinian woman, who lost dozens of family members in the Gaza war, has been hospitalized following a seizure in US immigration detention, the Department of Homeland Security said on Monday.
On February 6, 2026, at about 8:45 p.m., “medical staff at the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas, notified ICE that detainee Leqaa Kordia was admitted to Texas Health Huguley Hospital in Burleson, Texas, for further evaluation following a seizure,” a DHS spokesperson said.
Kordia, a 33-year-old Muslim Palestinian woman living in the US and whose mother is an American citizen, was detained by US immigration authorities early last year.
She was detained during a meeting with immigration officials at the Newark Immigration and Customs Enforcement Field Office, where she was accompanied by her attorney. At the time of her detention last year, Kordia was in the process of securing legal residency.
In a weekend statement cited by media, her family and legal team said they have not received communication from US authorities about her health. The family could not immediately be reached for comment. DHS says ICE will ensure she receives proper medical care.
Rights groups have long reported on detainee complaints about conditions in ICE detention facilities, calling the conditions inhumane. The federal government has denied treating detainees inhumanely.
Amnesty International says 175 members of Kordia’s family have been killed during Israel’s assault on Gaza since late 2023 following an attack by militant group Hamas.
The Homeland Security Department says Kordia, who was raised in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, was arrested for immigration violations related to overstaying her expired student visa. The DHS also says she was arrested by local authorities in 2024 during pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University that the department cast as being supportive of Hamas.
Kordia and other protesters, including some Jewish groups, say the government wrongly equates criticism of Israel’s assault on Gaza and its occupation of Palestinian territories with antisemitism, and advocacy for Palestinian rights with support for extremism.
Kordia has said she was targeted for pro-Palestinian activism and cast the conditions in her detention facility as “filthy, overcrowded and inhumane.”
President Donald Trump’s administration cracked down on pro-Palestinian protests by threatening to freeze federal funds for universities where protests occurred and by attempting to deport foreign protesters. It has faced legal obstacles while rights advocates say the crackdown hurts free speech and lacks due process.
