Full transcript of “1 Million Trapped In a Tunnel: The Love Parade Disaster”. Click a timestamp to open the video at that moment. Need another video? Use the YouTube transcript generator.
0:00 On July 24, 2010, 1.5 million people were expected at the Love Parade electronic music festival in Duisburg, Germany. It was supposed to be a day full of dancing, unity and celebration. Instead 21 people lost their lives, and over 600 were injured in one of the deadliest crowd crush accidents in history. And this wasn't some freak accident. It was a group of people choosing profits over safety. The people in the middle of it were just trying to survive after a certain point. You can't blame anyone in that situation for their behavior. The first thing I saw were these two people lying on the ground who I needed to resuscitate. I tried to give them mouth-to-mouth, but
0:46 they didn't wake up again. What warning signs did the organizers ignore? I was on the site the evening before the disaster and had already seen all the barriers and actually briefly thought, ‘Hmm, that doesn't look too good. Why were the DJs told to continue performing after people had already died? And who was ultimately held accountable for the tragedy? I spoke with the world's leading expert on crowd control, Dr. G. Keith Still. He shared tips on how to survive being in a crowd and what the team at Love Parade could’ve done differently to avoid a tragedy like this. People don't die because they panicked. They panic because they're dying. This is the story of the Love Parade disaster. Just months before the Berlin Wall came down, 150
1:32 people gathered in the streets to form a peaceful protest. Organized by DJ Dr. Motte, they didn't hold up signs or march — they just danced. Years later, this movement grew into an international phenomenon with commercial profit at the forefront. Fast forward to 2010. The Ruhr Valley region of Germany is designated as the “European Capital of Culture”. In the region, the gritty, former coal-mining city of Duisburg takes note. The city’s mayor, Adolf Sauerland, desperately wants to use the Love Parade to rebrand Duisburg, boost its image and bring in lots of cash. The event’s organizer is Rainer Schaller, the millionaire owner of the McFit gym chain, who bought the rights to the Love Parade as a massive, tax-deductible marketing tool. What better way to get people to join your gym
2:18 than hosting one of the city's biggest raves? The red flags weren't just waving. They were practically on fire. The venue they choose is an abandoned freight railway station, totally enclosed by wire fences, active train tracks and a closed-off highway. Official documents certify the area could safely hold a maximum of 250,000 people. Yet, the organizers publicly boast that they expect over a million. Now, it may seem obvious: How could a festival expecting so many people be held somewhere that had room for less than a quarter of them? Well, the organizers argue that, over the course of the 10-hour event, they would have 1.5 million people in total, but not all at once. Ravers would come and go in a fluid motion, like water passing through a pipe,
3:04 never surpassing the grounds’ legal limit of 250,000 people. But human beings are not water in a pipe. If you pour a gallon of water through a funnel slowly, it might work. But if you dump the whole gallon in at once, that funnel overflows. And in Duisburg, the overflow was trapped in concrete. But the worst part was the entrance. For a million people to access the raised concert area, there was only one primary way in and out: the Karl-Lehr Tunnel - a single, 400-ft-long (122 m) road that led to a 60-ft-wide (18m) ramp. At Love Parade, the smallest gap in the system was 10.59 meters wide. That would allow 82 people per meter per minute through it, which is 53,103
3:51 people per hour. And even on their own graphs it showed that we're expecting a 145,000 people at peak time. So it's three times bigger than its capacity. Volume exceeds capacity, you're gonna have a crowd crush. Experts from the fire brigade and the police took one look at this and called it a “death trap”. But anyone who speaks out about it is silenced. When the local Duisburg police chief Rolf Cebín warns against the event on security grounds, he's subjected to a smear campaign by local politicians for drawing negative press. Even ordinary citizens see the disaster coming weeks before the event. One entrance. One tunnel. Over a million people expected. The trap is set. Now all it needs is a crowd.
4:36 It's July 24, 2010. Sunshine. Young people in bright clothing arrive at the Duisburg train station, laughing and smiling. The day begins with euphoric anticipation. Ravers from all over the world pour into the city. The morning had started really well... How will the day be? We already knew it from Berlin... It's really nice and warm so it could go well, couldn't it? By 11:30 A.M., security's already falling behind. The entry gates process about 24,000 people per hour. But the trains drop off nearly 32,000 people per hour. Yeah. That math ain’t mathing. Every hour, thousands more people are being added to the streets with nowhere to go.
5:22 Some festival-goers said it took an hour and a half just to move 65 ft (20 m). By 2:00 P.M., 16 floats carrying sound systems, DJs and dancers circle the site. But the float layout creates another dangerous bottleneck. When people finally make it through the tunnel, a DJ float is right there near the ramp. And naturally, people stop to enjoy the vibes. The organizers expected people to flow deeper into the festival. But people do not walk past the party they came to see. We use the analogy of, you know, imagine you have an egg and you're gonna try and push it back into a chicken. You've got to understand that there's always a pressure point at which the system’s gonna fail. Doesn't matter how wide it is or how big it is or, or
6:07 you know what the system is, there's a volume of people that can flow through it because it has to match its capacity. As soon as your volume of people exceed the capacity, you're gonna have a problem. At 12:52 P.M., officials close the east and west entrances to the tunnel because pressure on the ramp is already too high. By mid-afternoon, the backlog creates a massive surge. Frustrated ravers, stuck in the sweltering heat for over an hour, begin tearing down fences and bypassing the gates, funneling directly into the tunnel. By 3:30 P.M., police inside the festival see the area near the top of the ramp is dangerously overcrowded. The crowd isn't moving enough, and communication starts falling apart. Cell phone towers are overloaded. Police radios
6:52 don't work properly inside the tunnel. The people managing the crowd cannot reliably talk to each other when they need to most. We then agreed with the organizer to close off the outer entrances simultaneously, so no one else could enter the tunnel from outside and thus approach the ramp. The idea is to stop the flow long enough for the ramp to clear. But at the entrance gates, security loses control. A huge wave of people rush into the tunnel. Many think they are finally entering the festival. What they don't know is there’s a police blockade ahead of them. Thousands push forward with nowhere for the pressure to go. The crowds are continuing to flow into those areas, coming up and down the tunnel. So you've got a T junction and they're coming in from all three sides. You can only hold that back for so long. By 4:35 P.M., a police
7:37 officer is trapped in the crush. His radio doesn't work, so he uses his personal cell phone to call commanders and warn them that people are suffocating. Moments later, the police barriers are overwhelmed. Officers get swept away by the force of the crowd. A police van tries to move through. People follow, thinking it might be clearing a path to an exit. Instead, it pulls more people into the choke point. At 5:02 P.M., the first casualty is reported. I kept saying, ‘Put your arms down, I can't breathe.’ I couldn't breathe. I was simply stuck in the middle of this crowd of people. I had trouble getting back up because there was no room at all. Early reports describe the disaster as “mass panic”, but that misses the point. People were not a mindless mob.
8:22 They were trapped in a deadly crush, desperate for any possible way out. At around six or seven people per square meter, you stop controlling your own movement. You can’t move your arms or control your feet. You are pushed by the crowd instead of choosing where to go. And so there were these wave movements in the crowd. An incredible amount of pressure builds up in these waves. People are lifted up off their feet. They can't breathe. Now if you are caught in one of those crowd sways where you’re being moved from front to back, wait till it moves back, try moving sideways, it moves forward, moves back, moves sideways again and you'll find yourself moving out of the pressure zone, using that sideways
9:07 movement on the back surge. And above all, stay on your feet. In a dense crowd, one person falling creates a hole, and the pressure can pull others down in seconds. Crowd experts often use the acronym FIST: Force, Information, Space and Time. At Duisburg, all four failed. There was too much force, almost no useful information, too little space and everything happened too quickly. Several festival goers suffer from compressive asphyxia. What happens is the pressure builds up so much you can't breathe in. And after 30 seconds you lose consciousness and after six minutes you’re brain dead. People try to escape upward, climbing anything they can reach: a closed-off staircase, a lighting mast, a temporary container office. But these escape routes became crush points too.
9:53 People stood in front of me and said, ‘I think I killed someone. I couldn't get my arm out. My arm was on the other's neck, and I tried to get my arm away from there, but I couldn't move my arm. And I think someone died because of me. It’s your adrenaline kick in, it’s your, you know, it's your survival response that kicks in that. So, you know, look like I've got a pole. Looks like I’ve got a set of stairs. Yeah, of course I'm gonna take it because if I stay here, I might die. Shortly after 5 P.M., emergency exits are opened. But some are poorly marked, narrow, or lead into dead ends. By early evening, 16 people are confirmed dead, with hundreds injured. But rescue teams have an even bigger problem on their hands… Before we break down what happened, if you’re enjoying the show so far, we’d
10:39 really appreciate your support. Every subscription helps us make better content, and your likes and comments help to actually get our videos seen. It’s tough out there, guys! And for those of you who’ve been following us for a while now, thank you. There weren't enough emergency announcements. There weren't any loudspeakers for the police where they could have spoken to, somehow, direct people. There weren't enough stewards. There weren't enough toilets. There were... Basically, everything was lacking. As emergency vehicles try to reach the site, they’re stopped by the tens of thousands of people still in the tunnel. Authorities shut down the nearby A59 Autobahn so helicopters can land. Paramedics grab stretchers and equipment, then push through the crowd on foot. People had already died.
11:24 Some were already being resuscitated. There were things everywhere: shoes, bags, everything was lying around. So for me it was... that's how I imagine war. That's how I felt back then. And while emergency workers are trying to save lives, the music keeps playing. Hundreds of thousands of people are still dancing and enjoying the Love Parade, without any idea what had happened just outside the entrance. Police and crisis teams keep things going because they fear that suddenly stopping everything could trigger a second crush. Instead, they slowly lower the volume, stop any new arrivals, open more exits and gradually empty the grounds. Some people don't learn what happened until they get home. Now just to bring you some breaking news
12:10 from Germany. 10 people have been killed, following a stempede. In total, 21 people lost their lives at the Love Parade disaster, and about 650 suffered injuries. But once the bodies were counted, the next question was supposed to be simple: Who was responsible? The public wants answers. In February 2014, charges are filed against six city employees and four employees from Lopavent, the company Rainer Schaller built to organize the Love Parade. The charges included involuntary manslaughter, bodily harm and failure to properly monitor security. But you know who isn’t charged? The city’s mayor, Adolf Sauerland. And of course, Rainer Schaller. Until the disaster, Adolf Sauerland was actually a relatively popular
12:55 and somewhat successful mayor of Duisburg. People thought he was making things happen in the city. But in the weeks and months after the disaster, he bunkered down in hiding, and many people in Duisburg resented him for this. Schaller blames the police, saying their barriers caused the crush. Police blame Schaller, arguing that warnings had been ignored and profit was placed above safety. And Sauerland defends himself by saying he supported the event politically, but did not personally sign the technical safety permits. The fact that the head of the city didn't keep a close eye on things is baffling. I'll say it again: they were the ones who wanted this event at all costs. This is how accountability disappears inside big systems. Everyone
13:40 says, “My part was fine.” But the public doesn't buy it. In 2012, Sauerland’s voted out. But losing a job is not the same thing as criminal justice. And for the families, the legal nightmare is just getting started. The truth is that in Germany, the criminal justice system is not equipped to handle such mammoth cases. The courts move painfully slowly. Seven years after the disaster, the trial begins. And the most powerful figures still aren't held accountable. Rainer Schaller is not indicted. Neither is Mayor Sauerland. Police commanders who ordered the tunnel barriers are also not indicted. In 2019, charges against seven of the 10 defendants are dropped. The court says their individual guilt was considered
14:26 minor under German law. The argument is that so many small mistakes over so many years makes it hard to prove one person directly caused the deaths. Not sure I agree with that statement, but let me know what you guys think. The trial continues with only three remaining defendants. Then the pandemic hits. Under German law, the charges had a 10-year statute of limitations. If no verdict was reached by July 24, 2020, the case would expire. They're using the pandemic as an excuse to end the trial. Everyone goes home and no one is held accountable. No single person or group of people is responsible for what happened. It's a scandal. With too much evidence still to review and not enough time left,
15:11 the court ends the trial in May 2020 after 184 days of hearings. No verdicts. No convictions. Twenty-one dead, hundreds injured and not one person held legally responsible. This trial won't be able to heal the mistakes that were made. But that's not my fault. We predicted this would happen thousands of times. This is truly a joke. And the trauma doesn't end with the court case. Survivors continue to suffer PTSD for years to come. Some can't enter tight spaces. Some can't work. For others, the thumping bass of dance music is enough to trigger flashbacks. Fear, hatred right?
15:57 Just the thumping bass alone is enough to trigger me. Memories surface, flashbacks… You can sometimes still feel the footsteps, the feet on your back, the pressure on your chest. To make matters worse, the city later plans to redevelop the site and pave over parts of the ramp and stairs. For families, it feels like Duisburg is trying to erase what happened. After petitions, protests and public pressure, the site instead is preserved as a memorial. But even with a memorial, one painful truth remains: The system failed, and then the justice system failed too. The Love Parade started as a movement for love and unity, and ended in a tunnel full of people fighting for air.
16:43 Although the legal system failed the victims, the disaster did lead to major changes in event safety. Large events now focus more heavily on real-time crowd tracking, density monitoring and better planning of crowd pressure points. The Love Parade itself was permanently canceled. Later, the original founder, DJ Dr. Motte, helped launch a new Berlin event called Rave the Planet, built around the political and cultural spirit the Love Parade was supposed to represent in the first place. We never want to see another tragedy like the Love Parade. Now, I’m sure people said the same thing after the Hillsborough disaster, where 97 fans were killed in 1989. Check that video out to see how the media tried to spin things on the fans to protect the people who were actually responsible. We’ll see you next time, in another episode
17:29 of How to Survive.
