A Thought For Innocent Victims Disaster at Pukkelpop in Flanders

mrdee · August 19, 2011

Yesterday, August 18th, 2011, disaster struck at the pop festival Pukkelpop in Hasselt in Flanders.

Something which had to be a fun and happy event turned into a living nightmare.

All of a sudden, the weather took a turn for the worse when it started raining, this rain was soon followed by massive hailstones and wind which reached speeds in excess of 100 kilometres per hour.

At the time, the group Skunk Anansi were performing, and singer Skin,being in the middle of her song, tried to go on as if nothing was happening, but when things got worse, the wind literally blew her off the stage, which is when the performance was stopped.

Afterwards, Skin declared: "In the middle of our set we had to run for our lives when the hailstones started falling onto the stage and when the wind was tearing open the cover sails of the stage".

Three of the stages, along with some food and drink tents were completely destroyed, either by being blown to pieces by the mini-hurricane, or by uprooted trees that fell on them or by a combination of both.

In the chaos that arose, the moble phone traffic got supercharged, as everyone tried to get in touch with their friends and loved ones who were also present at the festival, or the people present tried to phone home to let their relatives know the latest developments.

Yet, mobile provider Proximus stated they had increased the capacity of their network and put two extra portable aerials at the place of the festival, none of the aerials were affected by the weather, the network just could not handle the excess traffic that arose because of the circumstances.

The sad outcome is five people died, and 35 are seriously injured, of which three are still fighting for their lives and are either in a coma or are kept in an artificial coma.

Although the festival was attended by people from all over the world, all people who got killed are Flemings.

It was immediately decided to cancel the whole festival altogether.

The transport companies laid on extra trains and buses in order to get people home quickly, and the airline companies have decided to validate the tickets of international visitors immediately, rather than have them wait to return home until Sunday.

Since many people lost their camping equipment, or simply had no more room to stay at the scene, friendly people from the neighbourhood made their spare rooms and garages available to accommodate those people and give them breakfast in the morning.

The festival committee announced in a press conference that, out of respect for the dead and wounded, the festival will not continue, which is a financial disaster for them, but they think the respect for the victims should have priority over money, which I personally think is the only correct decision too.

Some shocking pictures can be seen in the following links.

WARNING!!!Those pictures are not for sensitive viewers.

Let us also spare a thought for the innocent victims.

Edited August 19, 2011 by mrdee (see edit history)