A spokesperson for Indonesia’s national football association says some of the gates of the football stadium where at least 131 people were killed in last week’s stampede were still locked at the end of the match.
Erwin Tobing, the chief of the association’s discipline commission, told reporters Tuesday that all the gates at the Kanjuruhan stadium in the East Java city of Malang should have been opened 10 minutes before the end of last Saturday’s match between host Arema FC and Persebaya Surabaya. But Tobing said the gates were still shut because officers had not reached some doors before the stampede began.
The tragedy began when angry fans ran onto the pitch after Arema’s 3-2 loss to rival Persebaya. Police fired tear gas to disperse the crowd, causing panicked fans to run towards the exits. The victims were either trampled or suffocated from the tear gas. Authorities say dozens of children were among the dead.
Police say footage from surveillance cameras of several gates showed they were opened but too narrow for the hundreds of people trying to flee the stadium.
The chief of Malang’s police force has been removed, while nine high-ranking officers have been suspended and at least 18 others are under investigation.
Indonesia’s national football association has issued a lifetime ban on Arema’s chief executive and security coordinator over the disaster.
President Joko Widodo traveled to Malang Wednesday to visit the site of the tragedy and injured spectators who are recovering at a nearby hospital. He has suspended all Indonesian league football matches and ordered an investigation into the tragedy, as well as an audit of all the country’s football stadiums.
Widodo told reporters he had spoken by phone with Gianni Infantino, the president of the sport’s world governing body FIFA, who offered to help Indonesia improve its “football management.”
Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters, Agence France-Presse.
