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full screen The Ferris wheel continued to spin as the gondola caught fire.
Passengers threw themselves out of gondolas – to save their lives as the Ferris wheel burst into flames at the festival in Germany.
At least 65 people were injured.
– They must have been terrified, says a witness.
At around 9pm on Saturday, black smoke billowed from a gondola in the Ferris wheel at a festival near Leipzig in eastern Germany.
Witnesses describe how the situation quickly escalated into a disaster.
– When the first gondola started to burn, the people in the other gondolas started shining their mobile phones, says one person to German Photo.
Tried to get help
According to the witness, the passengers in the other gondolas started flashing their mobile phones to attract attention and to get help.
– They must have been terrified.
The police now confirm that at least 65 people were injured in the accident. 16 of them had to be taken to hospital with serious injuries.
Witnesses describe passengers throwing themselves out of the burning attraction in panic.
– They jumped, says one person to the newspaper.
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full screen Witnesses saw people jump out of the gondola.
Organizer’s words
While the fire drama unfolded high in the air, rapper Ski Aggu continued his festival set on stage.
– Everyone in the audience was disturbed by him. He said some pretty inappropriate things. We could feel the acrid smoke in the sea of audience in front of the stage, says a festival participant.
The artist himself claims that he received orders via his earpiece to keep in touch with the fans in the audience – to avoid mass panic.
The police are now investigating the cause of the fire. Something festival organizer Sebastian Hannstein does not want to comment on.
However, he says that the staff on site acted quickly and evacuated the 24 gondolas by starting the 38 meter high wheel after the fire broke out.
He describes the shock after what happened.
– My family has ridden Ferris wheels for generations. Something like this has never happened before, he says to German Spiegel.
What caused the fire is still unclear. A man who rode the Ferris wheel shortly before the fire broke out tells Bild that he felt that it smelled burnt.
– There was a strange smell of burnt rubber, but then it hadn’t started burning yet. When we left the Ferris wheel and turned around three minutes later, it was engulfed in flames, he says.