Travis Scott’s Astroworld Stampede Tragedy
A 22-year-old Indian-origin student died of injuries sustained during a massive crowd gathering at rapper Travis Scott’s Astroworld festival, taking the death toll to nine, her family has said. Bharti Shahani, who was due to graduate from Texas A&M University in the spring, died on Wednesday night, November 5 following a serious brain injury in the tragedy. According to her family, she was on ventilator. Nine people between the ages of 14 and 27 were killed and several injured in a fan stampede during rap star Scott’s Astroworld festival Friday night. The investigation into the tragedy continues.
Bharti’s grieving family on Thursday confirmed that she has been declared brought dead due to injuries sustained during the uproar at the Astroworld festival. “She was like an angel to us.” Bharti’s father Sunny said that his wife and other family members cried and held hands behind him. Mother Karisma, overcome with grief, said, “Bharti is love.”
“Always thinking of everyone – friends, parents, family, his dog Blue.” He says that Bharti was the backbone of the family, the “light of their life” which was a gift from God. She was everything to me,” said Bharti’s younger sister Namrata. “We did everything together… She was like a second mother to me.”
Young Aggie was a first-generation American of Indian origin and a fine student, who would soon have graduated with a computer science degree. She also helped with the family business and took care of her sisters. An Aggie is a student at Texas A&M University. Bharti had never been to a concert before – rarely doing anything for herself, her mother said – but she decided to go see Travis Scott with Namrata and a cousin. Namrata said, “She was looking forward to it, she had planned her outfit, she tried everything, she showed it to me.”
The sisters were enjoying the music holding hands, but they parted ways as the crowd grew. Texas A&M officials issued a statement expressing their condolences to Bharti’s family. “The Aggie family is deeply saddened to learn of Bharti’s death. Our deepest condolences to his family and friends. We encourage our campus community to be kind and patient to ourselves and others because everyone experiences grief in different ways. We encourage anyone struggling to rely on their peers and professionals who are here to listen and help.”
People at the concert described the crowd of about 50,000 as packed and dangerous even before the concert started. “We were drowning. We were drowning. We were dying. We were screaming for help, screaming for the concert to stop, crying, screaming. Nobody listened. Nobody cared. of,” said his cousin Mohit Belani.
Bharti, her sister Namrata Shahani and Belani went to a Travis Scott concert together, but lost contact with each other as the crowd grew and lost their cell phones.
“Once a person fell, people started falling like dominoes,” Belani said on a local channel. “It was like a sinkhole. People were falling on top of each other. There were layers of corpses on the ground, like two people who were fat. We were fighting to come up and breathe (and) stay alive. That one Sister, one daughter, was a high-achieving college student who was about to graduate from Texas A&M University with high, high grades,” said the family’s James Lassiter.
Bharti’s family had set up a GoFundMe to cover high medical expenses in the ICU, which has raised over US$79,184 so far.
Another South Asian, 27-year-old Danish Baig, was killed during a mob lynching trying to save his fiancée, his brother was quoted as saying by local media. Ulysses, a Danish Pakistani-American from Texas, collapses during the chaos and is crushed by concerts while trying to protect Olivia Swingle.
“Travis Scott and his team and everyone involved with this event must and will be held accountable. He [didn’t] Stop the show even for people chanting and stopping the show. He allowed it. It was a bloodbath and it is all in his hands,” his brother said.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced the creation of a Concert Safety Task Force that would convene members including music industry representatives, law enforcement and state agencies to issue recommendations on how to keep concerts safe. “Live music is a source of joy, entertainment and community for so many Texans – and it is the last thing that concerts should worry about for their safety and security,” Abbott said in a statement.
Scott and the organizers of the event have come under intense scrutiny over how they handled the crowding that left hundreds injured.
“I am completely devastated by what happened last night,” the rapper said in a statement the day after the incident. “My prayers are with the families and all those affected by what happened at the Astroworld festival.”
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