Stadium Disasters over the years
The structural soundness of a stadium has to be top notch because of the number of people that can be accommodated in it. With numerous fans in attendance, if at any time a stadium collapses, it will cause untold damage and could
even result in the loss of life. Over the years many examples can be found of stadiums that have collapsed and broken and have caused a lot of damage. With the recent news of an under construction footbridge that collapsed in Delhi close to a major venue of
the Commonwealth Games, focus has been brought back on shoddy construction in sports stadiums. With corruption, illegal practices and other dodgy aspects of sports coming back into the limelight we might see more collapsing stadiums in the future.
These have been a bad times for the organisers of the Delhi Commonwealth Games. First there were serious construction delays and then there were allegations of corruption. Just when everyone thought everything was back on track,
two tourists were shot and injured by gunmen in the city on Sunday. With the fire still raging on in that controversy, officials from the Commonwealth Games Federation have declared the athlete’s village to be not up to standard. The village was declared dirty,
unhygienic and unfit for humans. With only a few days left before the start of the event, the organisers were scrambling to get the village ready but then disaster struck the hapless Games again. An under construction footbridge that was to be used in the
event collapsed very close to the main stadium. Early estimates say that the number of injured was 20 and thankfully no one was killed. But this may have killed off the Games for good. It is not known whether the Games will take place now amid fears that other
construction projects developed specifically for the event could collapse as well. There are new fears that there might have been corruption involved in the construction contracts given out and low quality work might have taken place.
This latest tragedy to hit Delhi is only the most recent in a long line of stadium disasters to take place over the years. One of the worst took place in Brazil in 2007, when eight people died after part of a stadium collapsed
and people fell to their deaths. There were about 60,000 people in the stadium during a match and the 50 year old stadium had been condemned as being in ruins by structural engineers prior to the game. Another devastating incident took place in Corsica in
1992, when a temporary grandstand collapsed. The temporary structure was erected to increase the capacity of the stadium from 8500 to 18000 people. 17 people were killed and over 1800 were injured in the incident. If we go back to 1985 to Bradford, England,
we find another horrifying incident. 56 people died when a smoker threw a cigarette butt onto the floor of a wooden stadium floor and the entire thing was engulfed in flames. Many safety precautions were put in place after this incident.
One of the main responsibilities that the organisers of matches and stadium builders have is to protect the lives of fans. The single reason they should be protecting fans is because these are the people who pay the price of the
entry. With the revenue generated from the price of the entry tickets, the clubs that own the stadium can afford to pay their players’ salaries, renovate facilities, buy new players and generally run their club. Without loyal, paying fans, clubs would surely
fade away into obscurity. Moreover, there is a moral obligation that has to be fulfilled to ensure the health and safety of everyone involved in sporting events these days. Mistakes of the past should be learnt from and never repeated.
Hopefully, despite the recent tragedy in Delhi, the Commonwealth Games will take place on schedule. People should really go back and research some of the previous blunders that caused stadiums to collapse and events to be forfeited.
Hopefully in the future with better building and planning regulations we will never see horrific incidents like the ones mentioned above.
Tags: