Eight people are dead and several others were injured after an incident at rapper Travis Scott’s Astroworld Festival in Houston, Texas, on Friday night, authorities said.
At around 9 p.m. or 9:15 p.m., the crowd “began to compress toward the front of the stage and that caused panic and people were getting injured,” Houston Fire Chief Sam Peña said at a press conference early Saturday morning.
Seventeen people were transported to hospitals, Peña said, adding 11 of these individuals were experiencing cardiac arrest.
He later said authorities transported 23 people throughout the day, including before the “mass casualty incident,” for “various medical issues,” and more than 300 patients were seen at the on-site field hospital throughout the day.
Peña also said officials won’t know the cause of death for the people “confirmed” dead until the medical examiner has completed an investigation.
Officials said it is unclear what happened, but the incident is under investigation — including the identification of those who died.
“It seems like it happened with just over the course of a few minutes. Suddenly we had several people down on the ground experiencing some type of cardiac arrest or some type of medical episode,” said Houston Police Executive Assistant Chief Lt. Larry Satterwhite. “So we immediately started doing CPR and moving people right then.”
Earlier in the day, videos showed a crowd of people storming the perimeter of the venue, NRG Park, but Houston Police Chief Troy Finner said during the press conference he does not believe the two incidents are related.
Finner also cautioned the public against making assumptions until an investigation is completed, noting police “heard rumors” of people being injected with drugs, “so I want to check all that.”
Officials said there were about 50,000 people at the festival.
Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said some of the victims who were transported were as young as 10 years old.
Families who are looking for people who attended the concert are encouraged to visit the reunification center at the Wyndham Houston near NRG Park, 8686 Kirby Drive.
“Tonight is about that. [It’s] about connecting families with the information that they need,” Hidalgo said.
