13 die in Peru nightclub stampede after police lockdown raid
Published:Monday | August 24, 2020 | 12:59 PM
LIMA, Peru (AP) — Thirteen people died in a stampede at a disco in Peru after a police raid to enforce the country’s lockdown during the coronavirus pandemic, officials said Sunday.
The stampede happened at the Thomas disco in Lima, where about 120 people had gathered for a party on Saturday night, the Interior Ministry said.
People tried to escape through the only door of the second-floor disco, trampling one another and becoming trapped in the confined space, according to authorities.
After the stampede, police had to force open the door.
“I feel sorry for the relatives... but also anger and indignation with the business people who organised the event,” Peruvian President Martín Vizcarra said at a public event in the south of the country.
He urged judicial authorities to punish those who had broken the law.
Some 23 people were arrested, and 15 of those tested positive for the new coronavirus and will be quarantined, Claudio Ramírez, a Health Ministry official, told reporters.
The party “was a breeding ground for the transmission of this disease, there was a viral load because it was a closed environment,” Ramírez said.
Franco Asensios, one of those who attended the party, told local radio RPP that the police raid started at 9 p.m. and that authorities told the party-goers to let the women exit first.
“People got excited and started to go down, and then they said that the people in front were suffocating,” said Asensios, who added that a friend who took him to the party had found out about it through social media.
Some people at the scene alleged that police fired shots and tear gas during the raid, but police chief General Orlando Velasco denied it.
Alejandro Ruiz, a watchman on the street where the disco is, told RPP that parties had been held there previously.
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