A stampede at an Atlanta metro station following a Beyoncé concert may have been triggered by an insect, transit officials have said. The incident occurred on Tuesday night at Vine City Station after fans left the Mercedes-Benz Stadium, where the singer had performed as part of her world tour promoting her country album 'Cowboy Carter'.
Chaos erupted when an overcrowded escalator began to speed up and then abruptly stopped, throwing people to the ground, according to local NBC affiliate WXIA. Nine people were injured, including one who suffered a broken ankle, and seven others were hospitalised with cuts and scrapes. A ninth person declined hospital treatment.
Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) officials now say the commotion was sparked by a girl screaming about a bug. 'I believe there’s also video on TikTok of a woman claiming it was a 10-year-old relative who screamed when she saw a bug,' said Stephany Fisher, MARTA’s senior director of communications. Police Chief Scott Kreher described the insect as a cockroach or 'palmetto bug'.
Acting CEO Rhonda Allen told the MARTA board that the scream came from outside the station, and the weight and abrupt movement from the stampede caused the escalator to malfunction. She noted that the escalator had passed an inspection days before. In response, MARTA plans to adopt a 'more aggressive approach' to staffing such events and managing crowd flow onto escalators.
Video footage from the station showed concert-goers sliding down the escalator amid screams, with one person heard asking if everyone was okay. Several people lay on the floor, and the person filming remarked, 'I’m shocked only two people end up on the ground.'
