A stage collapse due to high winds killed one man and injured several others at the Medusa Festival near Valencia, Spain on Saturday.
According to reports by CNN and the Associated Press, the main entrance and the main stage of the festival collapsed at around 4:18 a.m. local time “due to a strong gust of wind.”
At the time of the incident, DJ Miguel Serna was on stage and there were around 50,000 people in attendance. Roughly 40 people had to be taken to the hospital, including three with serious injuries.
“It was a tense few minutes, I’ve never experienced anything like it before,” Serna wrote in an Instagram story on the day of the incident (as reported by Reuters). “The tragedy happened just at the end of my session on the main stage, just below it, which was the most affected (area). It was a few moments of horror, I am still in shock.”
The six-day electronic music festival saw sets from David Guetta, Steve Aoki, Afrojack, Carl Cox and others.
After the incident occurred on Saturday morning, festival organizers shared a statement on Instagram that they had officially canceled the event, stating that the “adverse and unexpected weather conditions that are expected to continue throughout the day oblige us morally and out of responsibility to put an end to our 2022 edition.”
“The Medusa Festival management would like to express our deepest and sincere condolences to the families and friends affected by the fatal consequences last night,” organizers said in a statement posted to Facebook, adding: “Our thoughts are with them at all times.”
Ximo Puig, Valencia’s regional president, also expressed his sadness and offered condolences to the victim’s family and friends in a tweet writing: “A terrible accident that shocks all of us. I want to extend my deepest condolences to the family and friends of the young man who died early this morning at the Medusa Festival in Cullera.”
