List of fatal crowd crushes
This is a list of crowd collapses and crushes in which at least five people died. The deadliest modern crowd crush incidents have both occurred during the Hajj pilgrimage, with the 1990 Mecca tunnel tragedy claiming 1,426 lives and the 2015 Mina stampede claiming 2,400. (Although the term "stampede" is used in some media outlets, the scientific consensus is that true stampedes involving humans are extremely rare.)
Ancient era
- In AD 80, the Roman-Jewish historian Josephus recorded that in Jerusalem, while Ventidius Cumanus was procurator of Judea (AD 48–52), a Roman soldier mooned Jewish pilgrims at the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem who had gathered for Passover, and "spake such words as you might expect upon such a posture", causing a riot in which youths threw stones at the soldiers, who then called in reinforcements. The pilgrims panicked, and the ensuing stampede reportedly resulted in the deaths of thousands of Jews. According to Josephus, "upwards of ten thousand" and more than twenty thousand people perished in the event, though these numbers may have been exaggerated.
1700s
- 11 October 1711: 245 people were killed in a crush on the Guillotière bridge (Pont de la GuillotièreLyon, France, when a large crowd returning from a festival on the other side of the Rhône became trapped against an obstruction in the middle of the bridge caused by a collision between a carriage and a cart. ) in
- 30 May 1770: At least 133 people died when a fireworks display at what is now the Place de la Concorde in Paris, a celebration of the wedding of the future Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, set mannequins and other decorations aflame, leading to a panic in which many were trampled and others drowned in the adjacent Seine. Some historians have put the total death toll up to 3,000.