At least 12 people died on Saturday in El Salvador during a stampede of fans trying to get into the capital’s stadium to watch a football match promoted by the country’s president.
A spokesman for the President of El Salvador said on the social networking site Twitter that a stampede at the Cuscatlán stadium in San Salvador also resulted in hundreds of injuries.
Carlos Fuentes, a spokesman for the paramedic corps Comandos de Salvamento, told reporters that about 100 wounded were taken to various hospitals and about 500 people suffered from a stampede.
“It was an avalanche of fans who invaded the goal. Some were still under the metal in the tunnel. Others managed to get to the stands and then to the pitch and suffocate,” Fuentes said.
Local television broadcast a live coverage of the stampede. Dozens of fans managed to get to the field, where they received medical assistance.
At least two people were taken to hospital in “critical condition,” El Salvador’s National Civil Police said on Twitter.
According to preliminary information from the police, the stampede began in the 16th minute of the local first division match between Alianza and CD FAZ by a group of fans who were trying to enter the stadium.
The match was interrupted to remove spectators from the stadium, located about 41 kilometers northeast of the capital.
El Salvador’s Minister of Health, Francisco Alabi, assured that “all patients transferred” were being treated in the emergency services of hospitals.
Interior Minister Juan Carlos Bidegaine said civil protection teams had arrived at the scene to help the victims.
Hundreds of police and military personnel were also sent to the stadium.
The El Salvador Football Federation, in a statement, expressed its regret over the death and added that it would “immediately request a report on what happened and provide relevant information as soon as possible.”
Alianza and CD FAS, the two teams with the most fans in the country, played the second leg of the quarter-finals of the Clausura 2023 tournament, a match that was suspended after being dissolved.