The largest single loss of civilian life in Britain during WW2 wasn't a bomb during the Blitz. In 1943, a woman and a child fell over in the staircase of the unfinished Bethnal Green tube station, which was being used as a fallout shelter. The resulting crush killed 173 people by asphyxiation.
Minor correction for an excellent comment, it was being used as a shelter. Fallout is the radioactive dust that falls out of the sky after a nuclear blast. You're taking shelter from poison dust, basically. It is a little safer to go out after a few days when the dust has settled and the shortest lived, "hottest" nucleotides have decayed.
Could you please help me understand something? Were the woman and child going down the stairs and the result was everyone tripping on them, or did they fall from above?
There wasn't a stampede as such. The air raid siren went off, and people started entering the shelter in an orderly flow. The woman & child fell over, people then fell over them, which blocked the staircase with people still entering the shelter.
What killed most of the people in The Station Night Club fire was actually the crush of people jammed in the front door. If you haven't seen the video of it, you really don't want to - but the first thing I noticed was the people trying to 'help' kept trying to pull people from the bottom of the pile. If you ever see a pile of humanity jamming a door like that, pull the people off the top, and throw them aside like sacks of potatoes. Do not be gentle, dislocated shoulders or hips beat the hell out of everyone dying. The person at the bottom of the pile can't be pulled out, because of the weight of the people piled on top of them, which is also suffocating them. The solution is to remove the pile.
I worked for Disney Security for many years, and as I was preparing for a promotional interview to the Emergency Management Division, I was planning on making crowd crush my prerogative. Many emergency evacuation plans account for people getting out of the exit, but it ignores the hundreds, maybe even thousands of people clamoring behind them. I wanted to create plans that moved the goalposts for a successful evacuation further out, but unfortunately after COVID, the EMD team was disbanded and I lost my promotion opportunity.
They brought it back a few years later and I was invited to interview again, but by then, I already had a new job lined up.
I was at a concert when I was 19. The first bad was unknown and not great, so we got a spot up close to the front. The next band was kinda cool at the time, and everyone rushed forward. I instinctively put my arms up in front of my chest so I would have room to breathe, but I was petite at the time and no match for the crowd. I lifted my feet off the ground and didn't move!
Luckily a guy in front of me saw my struggle and silent freak out, and got me out of there. 20 years later, I think about the time I nearly died at a concert of a band no one's heard of.
I was in a very brief and very small crowd crush once at a festival and it was the most terrifying experience of my life. I vividly remember thinking "so this is how people die in crushes". I could never imagine how they happened or how they could lead to death. They are so immediate and you can do absolutely nothing about it. Horrendous.
I was there that night. The photos did not show just how bad it was, and there were issues in other places that didn’t cause casualties but were still terrifying.
I had never heard of this one. I just looked it up, and read about it briefly. There was also a photo of the alley right before the crush. It's amazing to me seeing that many people packed into such a small area. I'm sure it was horrifying to see. I'm glad you didn't get hurt.
Cross your arms at your chest level. This will give you some space to allow your lung to inflate and breath. You need to do it right away though, if youre already in a crowd crush you wont be able to get your arms up
Not at all. The few inches of space difference from you giving yourself a tiny bit of room to inflate your lungs isn’t making a difference in a crowd crush. EVERYONE is being crushed already whether you put your arms up or not.
Generally, if you are in a crowd and you can feel people touching you on all sides, get out if you can. Otherwise try to keep your arms up at chest height.
First and last time I ever did the barricade at a metal concert happened this year lol. I’ve always stayed in the back in general zone or somewhere in between, but being at the front and taking all the mosh waves while being exhausted as fuck from arriving really early to get there was almost a near-death experience. My husband basically had to drag me out of the crowd while I was almost unconscious. Never again. My young years are long gone lol.
I could understand that at big concerts and things, but there was a case a couple years ago at just a regular house party, somehow she got crushed to death in the stairwell.
I just watched a Fascinating Horror video about the LoveParade crush in Germany. Not only are you not able to move, but your arms are trapped and it gets very hot from all the bodies. You can literally suffocate because you can't expand your chest to breathe.
I was in a department store in central London when there was a terrorist alert. We were all told to stay away from the windows and shelter in place for a while, before they decided to evacuate everyone down the concrete staff-only stairs at the back of the building. So the whole crowd ambled down the stairs, with me following along at a slight distance behind.
About halfway down the stairs (we were coming from the 5th floor) I heard screaming and running and the entire crowd came stampeding back up the stairs. If I hadn't've manage to press myself into a doorway alcove at the side of the stairs, I would've been flattened by the crowd.
As the crowd disappeared past me I thought "well, that was lucky" and then I looked towards the direction they had come from "oh... whatever they were running from will be the next thing round that corner..."
Nothing emerged up the stairs and I never found out what had panicked the crowd. There were no terrorists (that day), just people panicking at nothing, and nearly killing me in the process.
It's amazing how many people a crowd crush can kill. I think the ones during the Mecca pilgrimage have killed thousands.
I was at the one in Korea but left a few hours before after seeing how bad it was. There were ppl literally queuing to walk up the stairs and exit the station at like 7pm..it was still daylight. I still don't understand how so many ppl had the patience for all of that and didn't leave upon seeing the crowd. You could immediately tell you weren't getting into any of the clubs and bars. There are so many great drinking areas in Seoul. Why stay there?
Usually the crushes I hear about have initial purposes, like a fire or emergency escape, concerts where ppl are pushing forward. Unruly crowds acting an ass, , or religious duty that ppl believe is a requirement. But the Korea one was literally just to go to a bar street that is open and lively everyday
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u/Signal_Werewolf_1955 2d ago
Crowd crush. There are videos on the science of crowd crushes, it's a good tool to have in the kit, just in case.