Dramatic scenes in Colombia: during a bullfighting event, a grandstand filled with spectators collapses. Dozens of people are injured and four are dead.
El Espinal – At least four people were killed when part of the stands of a bullring in Colombia collapsed. More than 60 people were injured, Tolima Department Governor Ricardo Orozco told Blu Radio.
A three-year-old child was among the dead, according to the head of the State Institute for Family Welfare, Lina María Arbeláez, on Twitter.
Videos circulating on social media showed how the wooden stands filled with people collapsed on one side of the arena in the city of El Espinal, a good 150 kilometers southwest of the capital Bogotá. The cause was initially unclear.
A bullfighting event called “Corraleja” took place in the arena for the Peter and Paul festival. Hundreds of people were in the audience. According to a report in the newspaper “El Tiempo”, a bull spread panic in the streets of the city after the incident.
President Ivan Duque announced investigations on Twitter. His elected successor, Gustavo Petro, wrote that he was asking the country’s local governments to stop authorizing events where people or animals were killed. He also recalled a similar tragedy: In 1980, an overcrowded grandstand collapsed in the bullring in Sincelejo, the largest in Colombia. At least 300 people died. dpa
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