Over 20 individuals sustained injuries on Saturday evening when a Ferris wheel at a music festival close to Leipzig, Germany, caught fire, according to a police spokesperson who spoke to AFP.
The blaze erupted just after 9:00 pm (1900 GMT) on two cabins at the Highfield Festival and was swiftly contained. The spokesperson detailed that four people suffered burns, one person was hurt in a fall, and an additional 18 individuals experienced smoke inhalation. Furthermore, some police officers and firefighters who attended the scene also sustained injuries.
Images circulated by German media depicted gondolas on the rotating Ferris wheel ablaze, with dense black smoke rising above. Emergency services, including helicopters and fire crews, promptly arrived on the scene, and all injured parties were swiftly transported to a local hospital, as confirmed by the spokesperson.
The Highfield Festival, renowned as the premier independent rock festival, draws thousands of attendees each summer to the banks of Lake Stormthaler, a man-made lake near Leipzig. This year's festival featured performances by Macklemore, The Kooks, Flogging Molly, and Rise Against.
