LIMA, Peru (AP) – Thirteen other people were killed in a stampede in a nightclub in Peru after a police raid to impose the country’s closure over the coronavirus pandemic, authorities said Sunday.
The stampede occurred at the Thomas nightclub in Lima, where about 120 more people had gathered for a party on Saturday night, the Interior Ministry said.
People tried to escape through the only nightclub door on the second floor, trampling on others and getting caught in a confined space, the government said.
After the stampede, the police had to force them out the door.
“Sorry for the enjoyed Array . . . but also anger and outrage at the entrepreneurs who organized the occasion,” Peruvian President Martín Vizcarra said at a public event in the south of the country, who suggested the judicial government punish those who had damaged the law.
Another 23 people have been arrested and 15 of them have tested positive for the new coronavirus and will be quarantined, journalists Claudio Ramarez, a fitness ministry official, told reporters.
The party “fertile floor for the transmission of this disease, there is viral load because it is a closed environment,” Ramirez said.
Franco Asensios, one of those who attended the party, told local radio PTR that the police raid began at nine o’clock at night and that the government told revelers to let the women out first.
“People gave therself up excitedly and started coming down, and then they said the others across the street were drowning,” said Asensios, who added that a friend who had taken him to the party had discovered him on social media.
Some others at the site said police fired and destroyed the raid, but the police leader, General Orlando Velasco, denied it.
Alejandro Ruiz, a vigilante on the street where the nightclub is located, told the PTR that matches had been installed there before.
“It’s possible that the noise will be heard two blocks away,” Ruiz said. When police cars passed, other people at the disco turned off the lights and turned down the volume on the music, he said.
The construction in which the nightclub is located is in ruins outdoors and is located in a commercial domain of the district of Los Olivos in Lima.
Felipe Castillo, mayor of the district, told local television N that the club under his jurisdiction still that tracking and tracking on the streets is “precautionary” due to the effects of the pandemic, which come with a relief in collecting taxes.
Nightclubs have been banned since March due to the pandemic. Peru began lifting quarantine restrictions on June 30 in an effort to bring the economy to life, and the number of reported viral infections has doubled to more than 9,000 in recent weeks.
Peru reported on 27,500 deaths from the new coronavirus.