At least eight people have lost their lives following a chaotic crowd surge on the opening night of Travis Scott's Astroworld Festival.
As reported by BBC News, panic ensued on the opening night of the Texas festival as the crowd rushed and pushed towards the front of the stage, emergency officials have said.
According to reports, 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.
Of the 50,000 people who attended the Houston event, roughly 300 were treated for minor injuries such as bruising and cuts.
Sky News reports that people started to rush towards the front of the stage as 29-year-old Scott was performing.
The rapper, who runs the festival, reportedly stopped several times amid his 75-minute set to ask security to help individuals out of the crowd after spotting them in distress.
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."
Lina Hidalgo, a local politician and county judge of Harris County, described the incident as an "extremely tragic night".
"Our hearts are broken," she 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."
Speaking last night, Houston Police Chief Troy Finner told reporters that "it's very important that none of us speculate" on the tragedy, 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.
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