Status: 06/27/2022 11:14 a.m
Parts of a bullring collapsed in the Colombian city of El Espinal. At least four people died and around 300 were injured. The cause is so far unclear.
At least four people died when a bullring partially collapsed in the Colombian city of El Espinal. About 300 visitors were injured, 30 of them seriously, the governor of the Tolima department, Ricardo Orozco, said on Sunday evening on a regional radio station. The dead are two women, a man and a 14-month-old child.
The cause of the incident is so far unclear. Outgoing President Iván Duque announced investigations on Twitter.
At least four dead after the collapse of a wooden stand at a bullring in Colombia
Tagesschau 12:00 p.m., 27.6.2022
The wooden grandstands collapsed on Sunday – documented on videos published on social media. “Given the scale of what is shown on the videos, the tragedy could have been far worse,” Orozco said.
The clips on social media show wooden stands collapsing on one side of the arena, tipping forward into the arena. According to El Espinal Mayor Juan Carlos Tamayo, 800 spectators were seated in the affected sections. According to a report in the newspaper “El Tiempo”, an escaped bull also spread panic in the streets of the city, which is home to around 75,000 people, after the incident.
View of a collapsed bullring in El Espinal. Like now, parts of an arena collapsed in the Colombian city of Sincelejo about 40 years ago.
Image: AFP
Policy debate on bullfighting
President-elect Gustavo Petro called on the country’s local governments to stop authorizing events where people or animals were killed. He also recalled a similar incident: in 1980, an overcrowded grandstand collapsed in the bullring in Sincelejo, the largest in Colombia. At least 300 people died then.
800 people are said to have sat in the collapsed sections of the El Espinal arena.
Image: AFP
El Espinal is located a good 150 kilometers southwest of the Colombian capital Bogotá. Gov. Orozco said he had unsuccessfully requested a suspension of the “Corraleja” — a bullfighting event as part of the Catholic feast of Peter and Paul being held in the city — early on Sunday. Citizens lure the bulls into the ring and attack him, which has been criticized by animal rights activists. Again and again there are injuries at the “Corraleja”.
Investigations launched against mayor
El Espinal Mayor Tamayo regretted the accident but defended his city’s tradition. “They’ve been around for 141 years and they’ve always used this structure,” he told Caracol Radio. The wooden grandstands would be built by experienced carpenters. The fact that children also attended the spectacle is part of it.
According to information from the broadcaster, the public prosecutor’s office is preparing investigations against the mayor and other officials. These would not have responded to a request from last week to the local administrations. In the they were asked to provide information about the security concept and the emergency plans for folk festivals in the region.