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
China overturns death sentence for Canadian in drug case
TORONTO: China has overturned the death sentence of Canadian Robert Lloyd Schellenberg, a Canadian official told AFP Friday, in a possible sign of a diplomatic thaw as Prime Minister Mark Carney seeks to boost trade ties with Beijing.
Schellenberg’s lawyer Zhang Dongshuo, reached by AFP over the phone in Beijing on Saturday, confirmed the decision was announced Friday by China’s highest court.
Schellenberg was detained on drug charges in 2014 before China-Canada ties nosedived following the 2018 arrest in Vancouver of Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou.
That arrest infuriated Beijing, which detained two Canadians — Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig — on espionage charges that Ottawa condemned as retaliatory.
Then, in January 2019, a court in northeast China retried Schellenberg, who was 36 at the time, sentencing him to death while declaring that his 15?year prison term for drug trafficking had been too lenient.
The court said he had been a central player in a scheme to ship narcotics to Australia, in a one-day retrial that Amnesty International called “a flagrant violation of international law.”
Schellenberg has denied wrongdoing.
The Canadian official requested anonymity in confirming the decision by China’s highest court to overturn Schellenberg’s death sentence.
Schellenberg, who has been held in northeastern Dalian since 2014, will be retried by the Liaoning High People’s Court, his lawyer Zhang said. The timing for the retrial has not yet been set.
Zhang said he met with Schellenberg in Dalian on Friday, and said the Canadian appeared relatively relaxed.
Carney, who took office last year, visited China in January as part of his global effort to broaden Canada’s export markets to reduce trade reliance on the United States.
“Global Affairs Canada (GAC) is aware of a decision issued by the Supreme People’s Court of the People’s Republic of China in Mr. Robert Schellenberg’s case,” foreign ministry spokesperson Thida Ith said in a statement sent to AFP.
Ith said the ministry “will continue to provide consular services to Mr. Schellenberg and to his family,” adding: “Canada has advocated for clemency in this case, as it does for all Canadians who are sentenced to the death penalty.”
New partners
Key sectors of the Canadian economy have been hammered by US President Donald Trump’s tariffs, and Carney has said Canada can no longer count on the United States as a reliable trading partner.
Carney says that despite ongoing tensions, including allegations of Chinese interference in Canadian elections, Ottawa needs a functioning relationship with Beijing to safeguard its economic future.
When in Beijing last month, Carney met Chinese President Xi Jinping and heralded an improved era in relations — saying the two countries had struck a “new strategic partnership” and a preliminary trade deal.
Global Affairs Canada did not comment on whether diplomacy during Carney’s visit related to Schellenberg’s case impacted the Chinese court decision.
“Due to privacy considerations, no further information can be provided,” Ith said.
Schellenberg’s lawyer Zhang said Carney’s visit raised his hopes that the Chinese court would announce a relatively positive outcome for his client.
Meng, who had initially been charged with scheming to evade US sanctions on Iran, was freed in September 2021.
Spavor and Kovrig were released the same month.
