Six people have been killed and around 100 injured in a stampede of panicked concertgoers at a disco in a small town on Italy’s Adriatic coast, authorities said.
The dead included three girls and two boys and an adult woman, a mother who had accompanied her daughter to the disco in Corinaldo, where an Italian rapper was entertaining the crowd, Ancona police chief Oreste Capocasa said at the scene.
The bodies of the victims were found near a low wall inside the building, firefighters spokesman Dino Poggiali told Sky TG24 News.
At least twelve of the injured were in serious condition, Capocasa said.
The provincial capital of Ancona is the nearest big town.
The ages of the victims were not immediately given and it was not immediately clear how many people were inside when the stampede erupted or the club’s maximum capacity.
Italian fire officials and ANSA news agency said the audience at Italian rapper Sfera Ebbasta’s concert at the Lanterna Azzurra nightclub panicked and ran for the exits after someone sprayed a substance similar to pepper spray.
A teenager told ANSA he discovered that at least one of the emergency exits was locked when he tried to flee.
The report said authorities were investigating if the emergency exits were working.