BOGOTA, June 27: Six people were killed and five hundred were injured when
a spectator stand collapsed at a bullfighting festival in El Espinal city, 145
km south-west of Capital Bogota, Colombia, on Sunday. People ran helter-skelter,
resulting in injuries to many who lay on the ground and were trampled upon by
the scrambling multitude.
All of a sudden the whole stadium collapsed on one side while a fight was going
on. Among those six killed was a one-year-old child. The injured were rushed
to nearby hospitals. A three-story section of the stands with 800 spectators,
including families, had collapsed. On a holiday, Sunday, the stands were packed.
At the festival called corraleja, where hundreds of inebriated matadors are
invited to taunt and take on massive bulls on the arena. Blood will spurt from
gashes all over but neither the bull nor you will die. This is an amateur version
of the traditional Spanish-style bullfighting practiced in Spain, Portugal,
Southern France, Mexico, Ecuador, Venezuela and Peru also.
President-elect Gustavo Petro urged local officials to ban such events as it
has led to several incidents in the past. In 1980, spectator stands collapsed
in the northern city of Sincelejo, killing hundreds. In 1989, stands collapsed
in Honda, a town outside Bogotá, killing eight and injuring 200. In 2006, a
similar incident injured dozens in a town not far from El Espinal. And in 2013,
a bull attacked spectators in the northern town of Arjona, killing two men.
Current President Ivan Duque announced on Twitter he ordered an investigation
of the disaster.
