The bleachers of a bullring collapsed this Sunday in El Espinal, a town in the department of Tolima (Colombia), during a bullfight.

The incident left at least four dead (two women, a man and a minor) and more than 300 injured.

Hospitals in the region have already treated 322 injured.

Four of them are still in the intensive care unit, according to the department's health secretary.

The collapse occurred during a local bullfight, a kind of popular festival during which the public can descend into the arena to face oxen and small bulls.

Colombia: a stand of an arena collapses in the middle of a bullfight and kills at least 4 people pic.twitter.com/D0BDCObPY6

– BFMTV (@BFMTV) June 27, 2022


Access to this content has been blocked to respect your choice of consent

By clicking on "

I ACCEPT

", you accept the deposit of cookies by external services and will thus have access to the content of our partners

I ACCEPT

And to better remunerate 20 Minutes, do not hesitate to accept all cookies, even for one day only, via our "I accept for today" button in the banner below.

More information on the Cookie Management Policy page.


An investigation launched into the incident

A whole section of the wooden stands on three floors, crowded with spectators, collapsed, throwing dozens of people to the ground.

"We are still waiting to see how many people are under the rubble, we don't know how many," the director of the civil protection department told local radio.

Almost the whole wing was filled with people, and it collapsed.

»

An amateur video shows victims trying to extricate themselves from the debris of wood and sheet metal, while a bull still prowls in the arena.

"We are going to request an investigation into the facts," current Colombian President Ivan Duque said on Twitter.

The day before, a few people had already been injured in El Espinal by bulls during another attraction.

The future Colombian president against bullfighting

For his part, the governor of Tolima called for the "suspension of all these types of festivities", affirming that they "attack on the life" of animals and encourage their mistreatment.

Future Colombian President Gustavo Petro, elected in mid-June and who will take office in August, has also asked town halls to ban shows "involving the death of people or animals".

The future head of state recalled that a hundred people died in the collapse of another bullring in 1980. Mayor of Bogota from 2012 to 2015, Gustavo Petro put an end to bullfighting in La Santamaría, bullring emblematic of the capital.

Bullfighting and cockfighting are still tolerated in the country as cultural events.

Company

Corrida: A bull pardoned after his fight at the Feria d'Arles

In the Camargue, a young raseteur dies, hit by a bull

  • bullfight

  • Colombia

  • Collapse

  • Hurt

  • Bull

  • World