Hi everybody,

I have just read about this tragedy:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-10751899



I am shocked because at last INTERFLAM2010 we were just talking about the possible dangerous scenarios during this event. I have also found the paper talking about this risk:
http://www.evacmod.net/?q=node/2213

This leads me one more time to think about how it is important that the public opinion has to be sensitized on the importance of the efforts that Research is doing in this field to try that these tragic events won't happen anymore.

Looking at the tragedy from the "Research" point of view, I think that it would be very important that evacuation models have to include "too high contact forces" that may lead to death. I just remember that in the FDS+Evac forum some times ago they were talking about this feature in the model (and that it is still not validated). Does anybody know if there is some models that permits to simulate death caused by "crush forces"? Have you read some papers about some experiments regarding this topic?

Regards,
Enrico

There was one paper I remember being presented at the PED 2008 Conference looking at crush conditions:

Peter J. Harding; Martyn Amos; Steve Gwynne
"Prediction and Mitigation of Crush Conditions"
http://evacmod.net/?q=node/1278

I think Keith Still / Sam O'kell is doing some work looking at pressure models within a crowd and understanding crowd collapse using a pressure vest. More details can be found here:

http://www.gkstill.com/News.html

I'm not familiar with the exact nature of the event but questions regarding why so many people were allowed to be funnelled simultaneously into such a narrow tunnel need to be asked.

I strongly believe that any event involving crowds (e.g., street carnivals, music festivals, religious celebrations etc.) should always be carefully planned by the organizers and approved by the local authorities (I am not saying that this particular event was not planned). Probably, something similar to what we do in fire safety in the building industry should be adopted as well into this context: we have the building design and then we check if it will provide safe means of escape in case of fire and/or any other emergency situations. For instance, before any venue is liberated for an event involving crowds, the organizers should show to the local authorities that, in the worst case scenario, the crowd would be safe. For this purpose, People Movement (PM) models are fundamental tools for this checking process.

The adequate and responsible use of PM models benefit immensely both fields: Fire safety engineering and especially ‘crowd safety engineering’.

Rodrigo

Michael,

thank you for the links. There are a lot of points of interests there. I think crush forces it's another issue in which Research has to focus. I think the main problem is the same of evacuation scenarios in general: data collection. There are not so many available real data and it is hard to reproduce the actual conditions during experiments.


Rodrigo,

I completely agree with you. Unfortunately I see a lot of times that the importance of safety planning is underrated (It is better that I do not mention examples I see in Italy regarding this point..). In this context, PM models could also be a very useful tool to help safety planners.


Cheers,
Enrico

Yes, Enrico this is something to think about it. Some companies, here in the UK, have already started to set up groups dedicated to this type of task and promote workshops in this field, for instance:

http://www.capitasymonds.co.uk/pdf/Event_risk_assessment_2.pdf

http://www.capitasymonds.co.uk/pdf/Event_Safety_Management_Diplolma_Flyer.pdf

As I said previously, PM models are certainly tools which can be applied for this purpose.

cheers,

Rodrigo