Witnesses of the Medusa: "The wind was very strong, it burned, but nothing stopped until pieces of the stage and the bars fell"

• Cullera One dead and at least 40 injured at the Medusa Festival when several structures fell due to strong gusts of wind

• Meteorology What is a "thermal blowout"?

  The "devastating" phenomenon that has caused the tragedy of the Medusa festival

"It was 3:30 in the morning, Brjan Nilsen had just played the first song and everything had already been chaos."

Dani was in one of the bars of

, which was useless because the strong gusts of wind, "with burning sand", were making even the bottles wobble.

"Just at that moment I saw how a sign in the VIP area came down, with pieces of wood, and hit his boy. That's when we began to be afraid and moments of chaos began. We already thought we had to get out of there," he narrates. to THE WORLD.

The thermal blowout that caused gusts of wind of more than 90 kilometers per hour ended up affecting the stage structures, bars and exits and caused the death of a 22-year-old man and 40 injuries.

The Valencian Community was on red alert for

.

The only decision taken in this regard by the Generalitat was the closure of the natural parks, the prohibition of making fires and traveling through forest areas and the reinforcement of fire prevention.

The rest of the activities were allowed and the Medusa Festival had "an intact file", according to sources consulted by this newspaper, which did not prevent a tragedy that the

is already investigating .

Judit, 20 years old, was in front of the

, 100 meters long and 30 meters high, built by the Fallas artist Manolo García with circus motifs.

Just behind, a large

that did not stop turning despite the wind, which was noticeable throughout the night in this area next to the sea and the mouth of the River Turia.

"Suddenly, very strong gusts began, very hot, it rained sand and what really scared me was that Ferris wheel, which kept turning with people on it," acknowledges the girl, a regular at the festival in other editions.

"We had never seen anything like it.

We don't really know what it was, so we moved away for fear of an avalanche.

It was then that we saw that a structure had collapsed next to the bathrooms and ambulances were beginning to arrive.

At that moment we thought why don't they stop this? ", She acknowledges.

One dead and 40 injured at the Medusa festival due to strong windsTHE WORLD

Dani, who is also an emergency health technician, understood the seriousness of what was happening when he saw the resuscitation of one of the injured.

"They told me that the impact of a billboard broke another boy's hip. But there were those who hadn't even found out what had happened. Security had to evict people from the bathrooms, from the bars...", he says the.

It was not the big day of the festival, which was scheduled for this Sunday with a performance by

, "although there would be about 100,000 people on the premises," witnesses explain.

Jesus was with his brother on another of the stages, techno, and it took them a while to realize what had happened.

"We saw that someone approached the DJ and she left the stage, but we didn't know why," she told Catalunya Radio.

The compound was evicted by security in a way that attendees criticize.

"I didn't know where to go. I was walking behind people because the entrance was what collapsed and there was also a risk with the structures of the emergency exit," explains Judit.

"Everything was chaos. All the fences were on the ground, the people from the campsite were queuing to enter and see if their tent had been blown up... They have said that it is suspended today, but there is little desire to return."

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