At least 8 die in crowd surge at Astroworld music festival


At least eight people were killed Friday in a crowd surge at the Astroworld music festival in Houston during a performance by rapper Travis Scott.
"Scores" of people were injured, Houston Fire Chief Samuel Peña said. "The crowd began to compress towards the front of the stage, and that caused some panic, and it started causing some injuries," Peña added. "People began to fall out, become unconscious, and it created additional panic."
Houston Police Executive Assistant Chief Larry Satterwhite said he was near the front of the crowd when the surge "happened all at once," quickly leaving several people "experiencing some type of cardiac arrest or some type of medical episode" and needing CPR. The show was called off shortly after the tragedy.
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Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.
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