At least 44 people were crushed to death and more than 150 people hurt, including many in critical condition, in a stampede after midnight Thursday at a mass gathering to celebrate the Lag B’Omer holiday at Mount Meron.
A police official said the tragedy was centered on a slippery walkway, with a metal floor, where crowding was at a height. (The harrowing videos below show some of the unfolding tragedy.)
Large numbers of participants in a concert had been moving through the walkway, which was on an incline, many of them “slipped,” falling on those below them, causing a crushing domino effect, the official said.
The event appeared to be one of the worst peacetime tragedies in Israel’s history, with a death toll akin to the 44 who lost their lives in the 2010 Mount Carmel forest fire.
The wounded were taken to the Ziv hospital in Safed, the Galilee Medical Center in Nahariya, Rambam hospital in Haifa, Poriya hospital in Tiberias, and Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital in Jerusalem.
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