TIL mass fatality causing "humam stampedes" and "hysterical masses" are myths which shift responsibility from organisers for fatal crowd incidents which "invariably" result from poor organisation
TIL mass fatality causing "humam stampedes" and "hysterical masses" are myths which shift responsibility from organisers for fatal crowd incidents which "invariably" result from poor organisation
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/17045970
From Wikipedia
Stampede events that involve humans are extremely rare and are unlikely to be fatal.[5] According to Keith Still, professor of crowd science at Manchester Metropolitan University, "If you look at the analysis, I've not seen any instances of the cause of mass fatalities being a stampede. People don't die because they panic. They panic because they are dying".[5]
Paul Torrens, a professor at the Center for Geospatial Information Science at the University of Maryland, remarks that "the idea of the hysterical mass is a myth".[5] Incidents involving crowds are often reported by media as the results of panic.[16][17] However, the scientific literature has explained how panic is a myth which is used to mislead the attention of the public from the real causes of crowd incidents, such as a crowd crush.[18][19][20] […] [M]ost major crowd disasters can be prevented by simple crowd management strategies.[22] Crushes can be prevented by organization and traffic control, such as barriers. […] Such incidents are invariably the product of organisational failures.[4]
People don’t die because they panic. They panic because they are dying”.[5]
Such incidents are invariably the product of organisational failures.[4]
What's the expectation here? That there should be orderly exits and moderation in people attempting to evacuate an area when they are dying? I'm not seeing how these 2 dots are connected.
Yes, available exits are key and people can panic when they can see they are trapped and suffocating.
When organizers of mass gatherings funnel people into areas without exits and people start getting crushed they panic because they are dying. This happens during protests when the police direct them into dead ends or cut off avenues of exit. Alao happens at sporting event with large crowds.
Basically, people are pretty good at dispersing under pressure when they have places to go.
Basically if you read the whole wikipedia article nearly all of these so called stampedes are actually crowd collapses where people are packed in too tightly and when a couple people lose their balance and fall it almost has a domino effect and people often die of injuries or asphyxiation. And panic doesn’t cause these, it’s having crowds at too high of a concentration.
At even higher concentrations, you have crowd crush, where people who are standing upright get so packed they are unable to breathe and are asphyxiated to death.
I was commenting more on the quote by the Professor where he says they are panicking because they are dying. To me that means there's a scenario where a shooter has started killing people indiscriminately or something like that and people are panicking in an attempt to leave. It seems an odd quote/reference to use when documenting organizational failures.
I guess it’s making a point of saying that if there’s an organised system in place, people will maintain their composure and leave without issue, even in an emergency.
It’s when there’s a lack of organisation and a bottleneck that means people start to get crushed, then all hell breaks loose when they truly panic.
Basically, the lack of organisation and a safe route out is what causes the panic where people stampede, not the emergency itself.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_Hall_disaster
Doesn’t have to be an emergency. 183 children died rushing to get free toys.
At the bottom of the staircase, the door opened inward and had been bolted to leave a gap only wide enough for one child to pass at a time. It is believed this was to ensure the orderly checking of tickets.[4] With few accompanying adults to maintain order, the children surged down the stairs toward the door. Those at the front became trapped and were crushed to death by the weight of the crowd behind them.[2]
Definition of poor organization resulting in death.
I can't name the last time someone has died in a "stampede". It's probably all the egress and occupancy regulations we have to mitigate them.
This one in South Korea is pretty recent (October 2022).
A special police team conducted an investigation of the disaster within a few days of it occurring, and concluded on 13 January 2023 that the police and governments' failure to adequately prepare for the crowds, despite a number of ignored warnings, was the cause of the incident.
The last time in Germany, at least as I can remember, was the 2010 Loveparade disaster in Duisburg, that has happened due to enormous errors made by the organisers.
Yes, those help the vast majority of the time, even during extremely dangerous situations like buildings being on fire.
There are still occasional incidents when organizers don't plan for the crowds or when anti riot tactics are used to restrict the ability to disperse while using tear gas and other techniques that are designed to make people panic so they will disperse, intentionally causing a stampede.
Put another way, with proper crowd management people will not be dying in the first place and so there will be no trigger to start a panic.
Like the myth americans are litigious but it's blaming the victims of no corporate accountability, no safety net and astronomical health care expenses
In depth video that shows some mismanagement can become deadly.
"humam" stampedes, huh
Sorry. Hunam.
