A look at some of the world’s biggest crowd disasters
Fifty-six people were killed in a stampede at a football stadium in southern Guinea on Sunday. The chaos follows clashes between fans in the town of Nzérékoré during the final of a local tournament between the Labé and Nzérékoré teams in honor of Guinean military leader Mamadi Doumbouya, the Guinean government announced on Monday. Here’s a look at some of the major crowd disasters of the past few decades:
December 3, 1979 — Eleven people are killed as thousands of fans rush to a Who concert at Cincinnati’s Riverfront Coliseum.
January 20, 1980 — A four-story temporary wooden stadium collapses during a bullfight in Sincelejo, Colombia, killing some 200 spectators.
October 20, 1982 — Sixty-six people die in a crush of fans leaving a UEFA Cup match between Spartak Moscow and Haarlem of the Netherlands at Moscow’s Luzhniki Stadium.
May 28, 1985 — Thirty-nine people died in fan violence during the 1985 European Cup final between Liverpool and Juventus at the Heysel Stadium in Brussels.
March 13, 1988 — Ninety-three people are killed when thousands of soccer fans rush into locked stadium exits to escape a sudden hailstorm in Kathmandu, Nepal.
April 15, 1989 — Ninety-seven people die and hundreds are injured in a crush of fans at overcrowded Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield, England. A victim died in 2021 of aspiration pneumonia, to which he had become vulnerable due to injuries caused by the disaster.
July 2, 1990 — During the annual hajj in Saudi Arabia, 1,426 Muslim pilgrims, mostly from Asia, die in and around a long pedestrian tunnel leading from Mecca to Mina.
January 13, 1991 — Forty-two people are killed when fans try to escape brawls at Oppenheimer Stadium in South Africa.
May 23, 1994 — A crush of pilgrims during the hajj leaves 270 Muslim pilgrims dead.
November 23, 1994 — A panic crush during a political demonstration in Nagpur, India, kills 113.
October 16, 1996 — Eighty-four people die and 147 are injured as panicked fans are crushed and suffocated before a World Cup qualifying match between Guatemala and Costa Rica in Guatemala City.
April 9, 1998 — A crush of pilgrims on a bridge in Mecca leaves 118 hajj pilgrims dead.
April 11, 2001 — At least 43 people are crushed to death during a soccer match at Ellis Park in Johannesburg, South Africa.
May 9, 2001 — More than 120 people are killed when police fire tear gas into a noisy crowd at a stadium in Accra, the Ghanaian capital, causing panic.
February 17, 2003 — Twenty-one people are crushed to death on the stairs leading to E2, a Chicago nightclub.
February 20, 2003 – Pyrotechnics at a Great White concert at the Station nightclub in Warwick, Rhode Island, start a fire that kills 100 people and injures more than 200 others.
February 1, 2004 — A panic during a hajj ritual at the Jamarat Bridge, near Mecca, leaves 251 dead.
January 25, 2005 — A panic among Hindu pilgrims near the Mandhradevi temple in Maharashtra, India, leaves 265 dead.
August 31, 2005 — At least 640 Shiite Muslim pilgrims in Baghdad are killed when a bridge railing collapses during a religious procession, sending dozens into the Tigris River.
January 12, 2006 — Panic among Muslim pilgrims during a hajj ceremony near Mecca leaves 345 dead.
February 4, 2006 — Seventy-eight people are killed in a panicked stampede at the PhilSports Arena in Manila, Philippines, while they were waiting for an audition for a television variety show.
September 30, 2008 — At least 168 people are killed and 100 others injured when thousands of Hindu pilgrims panic at a temple in Jodhpur, India.
July 24, 2010 — Twenty-one people die and more than 650 are injured in a collision in a crowded tunnel that was the only access point to the Love Parade music festival in Duisburg, Germany.
November 22, 2010 — More than 340 people are killed and hundreds more injured in a panicked crush at a festival in the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh.
January 27, 2013 — A fire kills more than 200 people at the Kiss nightclub in Santa Maria, Brazil.
September 24, 2015 — At least 2,411 Muslim pilgrims die in stampede during hajj in Saudi Arabia.
April 30, 2021 — Forty-five people are killed and dozens injured in a panicked crowd at Israel’s annual Mount Meron pilgrimage.
November 5, 2021 — Fans at a music festival in Houston rush to the stage during a performance by rapper Travis Scott, triggering panic which left 10 dead and many injured.
October 1, 2022 — Police fire tear gas after violence erupts following a Indonesian football matchtriggering a rush to the exit which left at least 125 dead and more than 100 injured.
December 1, 2024 — Fifty-six people were killed and several injured in a stampede at a football stadium in southern Guinea, following clashes between fans in Nzérékoré during the final of a local tournament between the Labé and Nzérékoré teams. Local media reported that security forces used tear gas to try to restore calm after fans flooded onto the pitch following a disputed sanction decision.
