At least nine people died and more than 60 were injured after the stage collapsed at a Citizen Movement party campaign event Wednesday night in the northern state of Nuevo León, authorities reported.
The party’s presidential candidate, Jorge Álvarez Máynez, third in the polls, said on social networks that a gust of wind caused the structure to collapse at the event held in the city of San Pedro Garza García.
Videos of the accident showed how the tents and a giant screen collapsed, as well as the stage lights when the candidate and his political team were saying goodbye, and how the entire structure fell. Other recordings showed people trying to get those left under the bars and the confusion and panic that reigned afterwards. The temple was about 20 meters high.
When the tent and the giant screen collapsed, people began to jump from the stage to wherever they could, explained the candidate, who only hit his head when colliding with a colleague who jumped at the same time. He said members of his team were injured and that he would suspend his campaigning activities.
The state governor, Samuel García, indicated that the death toll was still preliminary and that among the dead were eight adults and a minor who died in a hospital. He added that the injured had “different types of injuries.”
“It is a tragedy,” he lamented and then warned residents to stay at home “because there are storms and atypical winds” and opened hotlines to citizens who were trying to find family members who believed in the place.
The authorities did not immediately report the number of people there, but after the rally a concert was planned by a popular northern music band, the Bronco group, which also broadcast a video to announce that they were fine and to show solidarity with the victims. victims.
“I hug family members, friends of the victims and supporters of that organization,” President Andrés Manuel López Obrador wrote in X. “We are attentive”.
Some people were temporarily trapped by the structures, said Miguel Treviño, the mayor of San Pedro Garza García, one of the country’s wealthiest municipalities located next to Nuevo León’s capital, Monterrey.
“The weather conditions were very atypical because the rain didn’t even last five minutes,” explained Álvarez Máynez in a meeting with the press when describing the incident. And he gave as an example that on the way to the hospital to accompany some injured collaborators, he saw “many fallen trees.”
“I first saw that the drums of the musicians of the group were going to fly (…) that I was going to play and when they realized they ran too,” he added. “It is a tragedy that the people who came to experience a day of celebration, of joy with us, with the whole group, are now victims of this tragedy.”
Álvarez Máynez is behind the ruling party candidate, Claudia Sheinbaum, and Xóchitl Gálvez, who is in second place at the head of a broad opposition coalition for the June 2 elections.
Both candidates regretted the events. Gálvez offered his condolences to the victims’ families in a message through his social networks, while Sheinbaum expressed solidarity with his competitor.
Civil Protection reviewed and verified the facilities, he noted, and it was now up to the authorities to investigate whether the checks were correct.
[Con información de Reuters y The Associated Press]
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