The last love parade? Posted by jan on Aug 5, 2010 in Culture, Music, Traditions
Maybe some of you have already gehört (heard) that this year´s love parade ended up in a Katastrophe (catastrophe). 21 people were squashed to death due to a mass panic. 500 were verletzt (injured).
Originally the love parade took place in Berlin. It began in 1989 as a small political demonstration initiated by Techno DJ Dr. Motte, though there was no real political Hintergrund (background). In the following years until 1999 the love parade evolved to a mass event where up to 1.5 million people took part. Zwischenzeitlich (meanwhile) the parade often had to change places because there were simply too much people and the inhabitants of Berlin complained about Müll (garbage) and Lärm (noise).
Since 2000 the Besucherzahl (attendance) was regressive and the status of the event has been changed from “political demonstration” to “commercial event” by law. After a break in 2004 and 2005 a new organizer was found and the love parade took place in Berlin (2006) again.
The following love parade should take place on 7th of July 2007 but was canceled by the organizer in February. He was looking for a new city as a partner to the love parade and was finally successful with the “Ruhrgebiet” in Germany. So since 2007 it took place in Essen, Dortmund and Duisburg and the attendance was huge again.
This year the event took place on the 24th of July in Duisburg. About 1.4 million people besuchten (visited) the world´s biggest techno party. But as we know now, the place was not well chosen. The main problem was a tunnel that was the only Eingang “entrance” for all of the people. As the space around the people became closer and closer, a panic among them was unvermeidbar (unavoidable). 16 people died immediately in or beneath the tunnel. 500 were injured and 5 of them didn´t survive. The situation must have been horrible…I won´t even imagine!
The “catastrophe from Duisburg” is still very present in the media and daily discussions. But sadly this is not only to mourn the dead. It seems that nobody wants to take Verantwortung (responsibility) for the wrong planning and the accident. So the Bürgermeister (mayor), other people of the city, the organizer and other parties argue about Schuld (guilt) and Unschuld (innocence) as well as future events like the love parade.
But in my opinion there should be someone who shows the courage to take responsibility. This is not only a question of law and order but as well a moral one. I think they better should argue about how to help the families of the dead and injured people. And after this they should plan how to update security systems for mass events to avoid ähnliche (similar) situations. I hope the topics of the discussions will change soon!
One day after the Unfall (accident), the organizer said that there will be no more love parade. Time will tell.
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About the Author: jan
My name is Jan and I live in the south west of Germany. My profession is being a project manager at a company that creates digital media (first of all internet related things). This is my job since over a decade so I´m quite familiar with the web and its tools. Whereat today almost every school kid does. But that´s one of the main reasons why nowadays there are quasi no more limits in the internet and so it can be used for all imaginable types of things. For example learning languages! And that´s where we are at the moment. I first got in touch with Transparent Language when my family and I used to live in France a couple of years ago. I just had a break from work and by coincidence I produced some cultural videos in French. A few months later the whole blogging thing came up and I was lucky to be a part of it. So now my (second) job is to feed you with information, exercises, vocabulary, grammar and stories about Germany and German language. For being a passionate videographer I´m trying to do this more and more by videos. If you have any wishes or needs of topics that should be treated here, please don´t hesitate to contact me via a comment field. I´m open to your suggestions (as long as they are not too individual) and will try to satisfy your needs.
Comments:
Other Landry Organizers:
Had the Rose Parade been held Sunday, they would have had a dry parade route, but tradition was upheld which caused parade goers to endure the rain. Other Landry Organizers
Rocket German:
I can’t believe they let it happen in such a tight space. It was a disaster waiting to happen. Very sad but I think they should have it again but always in a large open space.