Pretoria - The number of fatalities in Saturday's stampede at a music festival in the German city of Duisburg has risen to 19, with 342 people injured, police say.
A news conference is expected later today at the city hall to give more details around the tragedy, which has shocked German politicians including President Christian Wulff and Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Most of the 1.4 million people who attended the Love Parade, one of the largest techno music events in Europe, have returned home without further incidents over the night, a spokesman said on Sunday.
The downtown area near the festival site looked like a deserted battlefield littered with papers and empty beer bottles.
Fences have been erected to block a large area around the freight yard where the festival was held as well as a nearby tunnel where the stampede occurred. Journalists were allowed to access the scene earlier this morning.
The stampede took place shortly after 5pm on Saturday as people were jostling with each other in an entrance tunnel and an overcrowded area adjacent to the event's main stage.
A local nurse said she had been trying to enter the festival ground since as early as 11am but she failed to get inside. "It's ridiculous to have just one entrance for an event of over one million people," she said.
Local officials, however, said that safety measures were and that there were individuals who ignored the rules. The tragedy was reportedly triggered by people who fell onto the ground when trying to climb up emergency steps near the tunnel to escape the crowd.
Hours after the stampede, groups of people could still be seen dancing to deafening music near the Duisburg central railway station. There were also people coming to the tunnel to mourn the victims.
President Wulff has demanded "uncompromising" investigation into the deadly tragedy while Chancellor Merkel also expressed shock.
He said in a statement that he was shocked by the tragedy: "Such a catastrophe, which caused death, suffering and pain during a peaceful celebration of cheerful young people from many countries, is terrible."
He expressed the hope that rapid and effective aid be offered to relatives of victims and those injured. "And the cause should be uncompromisingly investigated".
