Tens of thousands of attendees at a festival They were trapped Sunday in the mud of the Nevada desert, in USAafter the rain turned into a mud the annual meeting Burning Man and the police investigate a death.
Video footage showed “burners”, as the festival goers are called, who struggled to cross the wet zone. Some used garbage bags as makeshift boots. Many vehicles were stuck in the mud.
The organizers were forced to close the doors of Black Rock Cityname of the venue, and festival-goers were unable to enter or exit if they were already there.
All the activities of this countercultural festival, which attracted some 70,000 peoplewere canceled after rain toppled structures for dances, art installations and other performances.
Police said they were investigating a death but gave no further details.
thousands of stranded
The entrance and exit gates to the Black Rock City compound were closed, but some desperate attendees walked for hours to get to the nearest road and hitch a ride away.
“It was an incredibly harrowing 10km walk at midnight through thick slippery mud, but I made it out safely,” attorney Neal Katyal said on social media.
“It’s very slippery and the mud is like cement that sticks to your boots. These are dangerous walking conditions and are likely to get worse,” he added.
“You can’t really walk or drive,” a young woman named Christine Lee, a circus performer, said on TikTok.
Service internet was not available or was irregular.
“My boots are five inches, and they accumulated five inches of mud, so I was kind of on stilts,” Lee said, adding that people were being told they could be stuck until Tuesday.
“We have enough tuna for a week, so we’re good”he claimed.
A video posted on social media showed the comedian Chris Rock in the back of a van that gave him a ride when he got out.
Pershing County Sgt. Nathan Carmichael told CNN that conditions are difficult.
The mud “seems to stick to people, to stick to tires (and) makes it very, very difficult to move vehicles,” he said, noting that most RVs are stranded.
Organizers urged attendees to “conserve food, water and fuel, and shelter in a warm and safe space” as the “beach” – the huge open-air esplanade where the event takes place – was impassable.
“Take care of your neighbors,” they added. The festival is scheduled to conclude on Monday.
Launched in 1986 in San Francisco, Burning Man aims to be an event somewhere between a counterculture celebration and a spiritual retreat.
Initially organized on a San Francisco beach, it has become a structured festival, with a budget of almost 45 million dollars (2018 figures) and more than 75,000 participants in the last edition, below the previous one in 2019.
It has been held since the 1990s in the Black Rock Desert, a protected area in northwestern Nevada that organizers have vowed to preserve.
Source: Ambito
