Thousands injured as Juventus fans panic over firecrackers

More than 1,500 people are thought to have been injured – three of them seriously – after Juventus fans watching the Champions League final stampeded in a Turin square after mistaking firecrackers for an explosion or gunshots.

Thousands of people had gathered in Piazza San Carlo on Saturday night to watch Juventus play Real Madrid on giant TV screens. During the second half of the match, loud bangs led to a sudden rush in the middle of the crowd, causing a surge that flung people against barriers.

Many were trampled as people began to run out of the centre of the square, screaming in fear. The stampede may been started by the explosion of a loud firecracker that was mistaken for a bomb, according to some witnesses.

“I heard an explosion, which must have been a huge firecracker,” a witness told La Stampa, one of Italy’s daily newspapers. However, another suggested it may have been the result of a security barrier falling over.

“They shouted: ‘There’s a bomb! Evacuate the square,’” a member of the audience told the paper. “So we ran away. There were people on the ground, and blood and glass everywhere.”

One of the fans, who was caught next to the barriers, said: “I felt I was being lifted up. It was terrible.”

Although initially police said 200 people needed hospital treatment, the Italian news agency Ansa later put the figure at 1,527, using hospital tallies. Most of the injured were treated for cuts and light contusions, but three people, including a seven-year-old boy, were reportedly in a serious condition.

“The root cause of this was panic,” said the local official Renato Saccone. “We’ll have to wait a while to understand what triggered it.”

In a statement, local authorities said the crowd “was seized by panic and by the psychosis of a terror attack” fearing that the loud noise was caused by attackers.

Shoes and bags littered the ground in the aftermath of the stampede, and people were seen limping and searching desperately for friends and relatives. Police have set up an information point to help people find their loved ones, and are now investigating what caused the panic.

“I saw the entire piazza went in the direction next to the screen to escape, all in a panic,” the Associated Press reporter Brian Hendrie said. “They ran, fell on the ground on the glass.” He said some reported having heard a small explosion, others a shot. “I heard five or six different versions. It sparked a panic.”

Within minutes, dazed fans in Juve’s black-and-white jerseys returned and milled about the piazza amid the broken bottles and rubbish littering the cobblestones, with the match largely forgotten.