The chaos is said to have occurred at the Astroworld Festival in Houston, organized by American rapper Travis Scott, when the rapper himself was on stage.

– This is a tragic night, said fire chief Samuel Peña at a news conference Saturday morning Norwegian time.

According to Peña, chaos and panic erupted when the audience began pushing themselves toward the stage around 21.15 on Friday night. In the tribulation that followed, many people were said to have been run over and crushed to death.

– This led to a state of panic, and caused some injuries. The fire chief told a news conference on Saturday morning that people had fallen unconscious, which led to more panic.

Houston Police Officer Larry Satterwhite says: NBC News He was standing near the podium when the chaos occurred. He says the situation escalates quickly.

– It seems as if this happened in just a few minutes. Suddenly many people fell to the ground due to cardiac arrest or some form of malaise. We immediately started CPR, he says.

A video from Friday night’s concert shows rapper Scott stopping to ask for help.

– Security guards, someone has to help here quickly. Come on, come on, says Scott of the scene in the video.

a lot hurt

In addition to killing eight people, several people were injured.

According to Fire Chief Peña, more than 300 people were treated at a field hospital in the festival area after the accident. 23 people were hospitalized – 11 of them had cardiac arrest.

He calls it a “messy event.”

– More than 55 units have responded to this event, coming on top of the people hosted by the organizers for this event.

However, the crew was soon overwhelmed, Peña says.

– Can’t dream of this

The tragic accident is now under investigation by the police.

– Nobody could dream of this, but now we are here, and it is important not to speculate. ‘Nobody has the answers tonight,’ Police Chief Troy Wiener said at a press conference.

In addition to investigating the incident, the police are now working to identify the eight people whose deaths have so far been confirmed.

They encourage people who know they have family members present at the Friday night music festival, and who haven’t heard from them since, to contact a kin center set up in town.

50000 present

According to US media, the music festival was sold out, and about 50,000 people attended on Friday night when the music festival went off track for the third year in a row.

There should also have been similar circumstances earlier on Friday, when several people stormed toward the entrance to the festival, according to Houston-based KPRC, according to NBC. Several people were said to have been injured in the crowd.