Love Parade
Thousands of mourners turned out on Saturday to pay tribute to those crushed to death at a recent German techno dance music festival.
Twenty-one revellers at the Love Parade 2010 event in Duisburg on 24 July (10) died in an underpass crush between an overcrowded site and a new venue, while more than 350 others were taken to hospital with injuries.
An estimated 500 people attended a special ceremony at the city's Salvator church on Saturday, while thousands more gathered in Duisburg's soccer stadium to watch the memorial on the big screens. The event was also shown live on TV by several broadcasters, reports the Associated Press.
In his opening sermon at the Rhineland Lutheran church, cleric Nikolaus Scheider told the assembly, "The Love Parade was danced to death. In the middle of a celebration of lust for life, death showed its ugly face to all of us."
German President Christian Wulff and Chancellor Angela Merkel joined relatives of the victims to mourn the tragedy, while relief workers lit a white candle for each of the lives lost.
A preliminary police report found organisers of the Love Parade had breached major security rules which may have resulted in the deadly crush. This year's (10) festival has since been declared the last.