From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A stampede is an act of mass impulse among herd animals or a crowd of people in which the herd (or crowd) collectively begins running with no clear direction or purpose. Stampedes are believed to originate from biological responses in the brains and endocrine systems of herd animals. The response is believed to have evolved to help animals escape predators.

A large stampede will frequently destroy anything in its way. In farmed animals, herd managers, sometimes called cowboys, attempt to turn the moving herd into itself, so that it runs in circles rather than self-destructing by running over a cliff or into a river, or from damaging human life or property by overrunning human settlements.

Specific animals associated with stampede behaviour are cattle, elephants, Blue Wildebeests and wild horses.

Contents 1 Human stampedes 1.1 List of human stampedes 2 See also 3 External links

The term stampede, also known as a crush or trampling, commonly describes a sudden rush of a crowd of people, usually resulting in many injuries and death from suffocation and trampling. Human stampedes most often occur during religious pilgrimages and professional sporting and music events. They can also occur as a result of another problem such as a fire, as people try to move away or escape.

The annual Muslim Hajj in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, which is attended by millions of pilgrims, has increasingly suffered from stampedes and other disasters, even as authorities have constructed new walkways and instituted other traffic controls to prevent them. The worst documented stampede in modern history happened at the 1990 Hajj, when over 1400 people died in a tunnel.

While it may seem that shorter people are at greater risk for injury during a stampede, this is not the case. Taller people, while stumbling and tripping over everybody else, are more likely to be knocked down and trampled.^{[citation needed]} The elderly and very young are especially prone to injury or death during a stampede because of their frailty, disabilities, size, or weakness.

Very often people away from the location of the crush or trampling are completely unaware of the problem.

• May 18th, 1896: Khodynka Tragedy: 1389 people killed, 1300 injured in a crush desiring to get presents during Russian Tsar Nicholas II coronation.
• January 11th, 1908: Barnsley Public Hall Disaster: 16 children killed during a stampede in Barnsley, South Yorkshire, England, when someone in the hall shouted 'Fire!'
• December 24, 1913, Italian Hall Disaster: 73 people were crushed to death in Calumet, Michigan. This event is considered the legal source for the often-cited First Amendment limitation, "You cannot shout 'Fire' in a crowded theater."
• December 3, 1979: 11 killed during a crush at a The Who concert at Riverfront Coliseum in Cincinnati. The incident led to a reduced use of festival seating at US venues. The event was later portrayed offstage on WKRP in Cincinnati.
• May 29, 1985: 39 killed in the Heysel Stadium disaster
• In 1989, a stampede at Hillsborough stadium, Sheffield, England, killed 96 during a football cup semi-final.
• July, 1990: 1426 pilgrims killed in al-Muaissem tunnel in Mina, Saudi Arabia during the Hajj.
• October 30, 1993: 73 student fans injured, six critically, by a crowd crush shortly after a football game at the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Camp Randall Stadium.
• May 1994: 270 killed at Jamarat Bridge in Mecca during the stoning of the Devil.
• October 16, 1996: 82 killed, 147 injured on a steep stadium stairway prior to a World Cup qualifying match between Guatemala and Costa Rica in the Estadio Mateo Flores in Guatemala City.
• March, 1998: 70 killed when fans at Nepal's national soccer stadium stampede for the exits during a hailstorm.
• April 1998: 119 killed at the Hajj in Mecca.
• May 30, 1999: 53 people die in a stampede at the Nemiga metro station in Minsk, Belarus.
• April 11, 2001: 43 crushed in the Ellis Park Stadium disaster.
• May 2001: 126 killed at a soccer match in Accra, Ghana after police fire tear gas at rioters.
• February 6, 2003: 21 killed in the stairway exit to E2, a nightclub in Chicago, after a pepper spray use on an upper-story dance floor.
• February 20, 2003: 100 killed in The Station nightclub fire, many of them trampled.
• February 2004: 251 killed at Jamarat Bridge in Mecca during the stoning of the devil.
• January 2005: 265 killed as Hindu pilgrims stampede near a remote temple in Maharashtra, India.
• August 31, 2005: 1000 possibly killed in a Baghdad bridge stampede
• December 2005: 42 killed as flood relief supplies are handed out to homeless refugees in southern India.
• January 12, 2006: 345 killed at Jamarat Bridge in Mecca during the stoning of the devil.
• February 4, 2006: 74 killed in the PhilSports Arena stampede in the Philippines
• September 12, 2006: Fifty-one killed and more than 200 injured at a stampede in Ibb Governorate, Yemen. [1] [2]

• Incidents during the Hajj

• World's worst stampedes - China Daily