Travis Scott’s Astroworld: Alarming footage shows hundreds of people charging through security gates

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By stefan armitage

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Footage from Travis Scott’s Astroworld festival shows the moment hundreds of people stormed the security gates.

Earlier today, it was reported that at least eight people lost their lives following a chaotic crowd surge on the opening night of the festival, which was being held in Houston, Texas.

As reported by BBC News, emergency officials have said that eleven people were transported to hospitals in cardiac arrest - with eight people tragically dying. Some people were also treated on-site at the NRG Park, at the temporary field hospital.

Sky News adds that people started to rush towards the front of the stage as 29-year-old Scott was performing, with the rapper -  who runs the festival - reportedly stopping several times amid his 75-minute set to ask security to help individuals out of the crowd after seeing them in distress.

Now, ABC News reporter Mycah Hatfield has taken to Twitter to share the moment a "stampede" charged through one of the security gates.

She captioned the clip: "As we were arriving to the Astroworld Festival at NRG Park right at 2:00, a stampede burst through the gates. Hundreds of people destroyed the VIP security entrance, bypassing the checkpoint. People were trampled. Some were detained."

The footage can be seen below:

In the clip, police officers on horses can be seen attempting to impede the charging festival-goers, as a security gate collapses in the background.

Hatchfield later tweeted: "Knowing what we know now, this incident at #ASTROWORLDFest has become that much more terrifying."

Local fire chief Samuel Pena revealed that the show was called off shortly after the rush occurred.

Pena said: "The crowd began to compress towards the front of the stage, and that caused some panic, and it started causing some injuries."

He added that "additional panic" erupted when people "began to fall out" and "become unconscious".

Chief Lt. Larry Satterwhite from the Houston police was at the front of the stage when the tragedy started to unfold. "It seems like it happened with just over the course of a few minutes," Satterwhite said. "Suddenly we had several people down on the ground experiencing some type of cardiac arrest or some type of medical episode.

"We immediately started doing CPR."

Houston Police Chief Troy Finner also spoke to reporters regarding the tragedy, telling people "it's very important that none of us speculate", adding: "Nobody has all the answers tonight."

"We're going to do an investigation and find out because it's not fair to the producers, to anybody else involved, until we determine what happened, what caused the surge. We don't know, but we will find out," Finner added.

Meanwhile, Lina Hidalgo, a local politician and county judge of Harris County, described the incident as an "extremely tragic night".

"Our hearts are broken," Hidalgo said. "People go to these events looking for a good time, a chance to unwind, to make memories - it's not the kind of event you go to where you expect to find out about fatalities."

Featured image credit: Xinhua / Alamy