Four killed in disco stampede

Four people have died and eight have been injured as people stampeded at a disco entrance in the Urals. An announcement about free entry for the first thirty minutes resulted in the tragedy.

It happened in the town of Pervouralsk, Sverdlovsk region (not far from the city of Yekaterinburg) in the Kapella Trade & Entertainemnt Center.

The disco was supposed to hold around 200 people but management promised free entry to those who could get in the hall within the first 30 minutes.

“A stampede developed at the start of the disco, and the first cries for help were heard two or three minutes later,” Valery Gorelykh, regional police department spokesman, told Interfax news agency.

“As a result of the stampede, four people were fatally injured: a man, resident of Pervouralsk, and three tenth-grade girls from the Ginas suburb. Another eight people needed medical aid and some of them were hospitalized,” he informed.

A criminal case has been launched concerning the deaths of four people.