At least 30 injured after fire erupts on Ferris wheel at music festival
At least 30 people have been injured, including four police officers, after a Ferris wheel burst into flames at a German rock music festival.
The blaze broke out in a gondola at the Highfield Festival at Störmthaler Lake, about eight miles south of Leipzig, at around 9.13pm.
Screams broke out from the riders on the Ferris wheel after the fire erupted from a lower tub before spreading to a second, LZ TV reported.
Footage showed how the Ferris wheel continued to spin even as the two gondolas were reduced to fireballs, with sparks spraying out from the metal frame.
German rapper Ski Aggu cut his performance short after spotting the flames.
Firefighters managed to tip the two gondolas upside down so the flames would not spread further.
Most people were taken to hospital for smoke inhalation. The German Red Cross said two people were seriously injured. the German tabloid reported.
Police spokeswoman Josephin Sader told the German tabloid BILD: ‘We currently know that there are over 30 injured people, including four injured police officers, but all of them are probably slightly injured.’
The blaze has since been extinguished, with the two gondolas completely gutted.
Organisers said the cause of the inferno was a technical fault on the Ferris wheel.
Aggu, known off-stage as August Diederich, thanked festival-goers for ‘staying so calm’ during the fire and wished those injured ‘.get better soon’.
‘I was told under no circumstances should I cancel the show,’ Aggu said, ‘but that I should stay in dialogue with you so that mass panic would not arrive.’
Highfield, the largest independent rock festival in eastern Germany, will resume this evening, they added.
The three-day festival attracts some 30,000 visitors every year.
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