Play was suspended about 16 minutes<\/a> into the match, when fans in the stands waving frantically began getting the attention of those on the field and carrying the injured out of a tunnel and down onto the field.<\/p>\nLocal television transmitted live images of the aftermath of the stampede, which appeared to mainly involve Alianza fans. Dozens made it onto the field where they received medical treatment. Fans who escaped the crush furiously waved their shirts attempting to review people lying on the grass barely moving.<\/p>\n
\u201cEl Salvador is in mourning,\u201d said a statement from the press office of Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, which confirmed that at least 12 people were dead.<\/p>\n
Alianza fan Jos\u00e9 \u00c1ngel Penado said the game was scheduled to start at 7:30 p.m. but they closed the gate at 7 p.m. and “left us outside (the stadium) with our tickets in our hands.”<\/p>\n
Sections of the stadium are often reserved for fans of one team to avoid clashes with rivals, so those fans would have to enter through the indicated gate.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople got angry. We asked them to let us in, but no. So they knocked the gate down,\u201d Penado said.<\/p>\n
Civil Protection director Luis Amaya said about 500 people had been tended to at the stadium and about 100 were taken to hospitals. At least two of the injured transported to hospitals were reported in critical condition.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a night of terror. I never thought something like this would happen to me,\u201d sAlianza fan Tomas Renderos said as he left a hospital where he had received medical attention. \u201cFortunately I only have a few bruises … but not everyone had my luck.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pedro Hern\u00e1ndez, president of El Salvador soccer’s first division, said the preliminary information he had was that the stampede occurred because fans pushed through a gate into the stadium.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was an avalanche of fans who overran the gate. Some were still under the metal in the tunnel. Others managed to make it to the stands and then to the field and were smothered,\u201d an unidentified volunteer with the Rescue Commandos first aid group told journalists.\u00a0<\/p>\n
National Civil Police Commissioner Mauricio Arriza Chicas, at the scene of the tragedy, said there would be a criminal investigation in conjunction with the Attorney General\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are going to investigate from the ticket sales, the entries into the stadium, but especially the southern zone,\u201d where, he said, the gate was pushed open.<\/p>\n
\u00a0FIFA President Gianni Infantino said Sunday in a speech at a World Health Organization meeting in Geneva, \u201cI simply would like to express, of course, my condolences to all the people of El Salvador for this tragic incident.\u201d<\/p>\n
From:AOL<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) \u2014 Fans angry at being blocked from entering a Salvadoran soccer league match despite having tickets knocked down a small…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1292252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbimBl-5qaM","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1292252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1292252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1292252\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1292252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1292252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1292252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}