On Sunday afternoon, townspeople in El Espinal in Colombia’s western state of Tolima were celebrating the upcoming Feast of St. Peter at a bullfight, when part of the stadium collapsed.
Four people, including one minor, have been reported killed in the incident and over 300 were treated for their injuries, reports CNN. “At this moment, we have four (dead) victims confirmed — two women, an adult man and a minor — plus about 30 people seriously injured. Of course, we have activated all the hospitals and ambulances we can work with,” Tolima Gov. Ricardo Orozco said on BluRadio Colombia, a local radio outlet.
Drone video captured the tragedy, which shows the part of the stadium suddenly just collapsing:
The Mayor of the town, Juan Carlos Tamayo, asked the citizens to evacuate. “We deeply regret what happened in our bullfight arena. I want to ask all the citizens who are in the area to please evacuate, authorities are already responding to the emergency and the injured have been taken to hospitals. Please, let’s evacuate, together let’s help the emergency services, so they can do their job.”
A local posted a video on Twitter where you can hear people’s screams:
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Tamayo said in his statement authorities “have already begun investigating the causes of what happened.”
What a tragedy! The people were just gathered on a Sunday afternoon to celebrate a religious holiday when tragedy struck. The stadium itself appeared to be rather old and run down, but I’m sure no one thought it unsafe. What do you think might have caused the collapse?
