Chennai IAF air show tragedy: Where was the planning?

CHENNAI: Five people died on Sunday due to lack of crowd management after the IAF’s air show finished around 1 pm. More than 200 fainted and had to be hospitalised.

This was the third instance of the air show being held outside Delhi, where crowd and traffic management have consistently posed challenges. However, with the government beating its own drum to create a world record, the devastating outcome underscores the need for improved event planning, crowd control, and emergency preparedness.

Lessons from the past

The air show in Chandigarh was marred by mismanagement, despite being well-planned on paper. The event allowed the public to enter into a space with a limited capacity of 30,000.

The administration had set up 11 alighting points where attendees could park and board government buses to reach Sukhna Lake, which was the venue for the air show. However, the execution fell short.

Commuters faced lengthy delays and confusion on designated routes, where government buses were supposed to ferry people to the venue. The inefficiencies in transportation led to overcrowding and discomfort among the public. Despite using the ‘Chandigarh Tourism’ mobile app for ticket booking, the event was widely criticised in every detail with regard to crowd control, traffic diversions, food and water, etc.

The Prayagraj air show last year too, was plagued by severe traffic congestion, leaving thousands of commuters stranded for hours, struggling to reach their destinations.

Cut to the air show in the city: The IAF had predicted a crowd of about 15 lakh people, but the State government officials seem to have not believed it. Moreover, if the meetings with the Chief Secretary and other departments were held, the measures to avoid these circumstances should have been discussed if a simple background research was done. The absence of an evacuation plan is one of the reasons for the chaos. It did not even have an organised system to track the number of people attending the show.

Noon timings

While the previous air shows were held in the evening hours of 2:30 pm to 5 pm in Prayagraj and between 3 pm-5.30 pm in Chandigarh, the show in Chennai (11 am to 1 pm) added to the trauma. Expecting a huge crowd, hundreds of denizens reached the Marina as early as 8 am and stood there for 4-5 hours.

While they carried water bottles with them, it was insufficient given that the city recorded 35-degree Celsius (maximum temperature) with excessive humidity. Once the spectators were inside the barricades, they could not exit the venue to access water availability points or even washrooms.

Consoling her son who fainted at the footpath near the Vivekananda House, Krithika Devi said: “We reached the venue very early but we didn’t know how bad it could get. My 10-year-old son became dehydrated and fainted. We wanted to go to get water from outside, but we could not get out of the venue.”

Recalling the experience of the 2003 air show in Chennai, Mohammad Irfanullah wrote on Facebook that the show itself was spectacular, but getting there was a challenge. “Back then, I was able to buy a packet of water. I still remember paying Rs 3 for a water packet that was just Rs 1. Luckily, the event was scheduled around 4 pm which helped avoid issues like dehydration. The State government should always plan such events in the evening and ensure there’s enough drinking water available,” he added.

Sangeetha Rajesh, an attendee of the event said that the situation was not this bad when she visited the show in 2003, and it was because of the mesmerizing show that she decided to visit again with her family. However, it was an horrific experience for her as she lost her children in the crowd and could not even reach them due to network jammers.

"I know authorities are saying it's the heat, but that's not true because we were in the sun on the beach from 9 am until 1 pm, and no one fainted or died. It was only after they got caught in a stampede-like situation. There was no public addressing system so we didn't know where to go. The administration spent all their energies and money on taking care of the VIPs and VVIPs, while they left common people in the lurch," says Sangeetha.

She added that her husband almost collapsed and after waiting in the beach until 04 pm, she managed to contact her children. "We got out in the end, but cannot get over that we were so close to being anyone of those people either dead or hospitalised," she added.

No medical support

Though heat-related issues and underlying health conditions are being blamed for the death of five people, medical teams were not seen anywhere after the show ended.

Officials of the State Health Department said that a sufficient number of ambulances were diverted to the venue but most were managed by the emergency staff as the ambulances were stuck in traffic for hours.

Around 250 people reported to have fainted after the show but that’s only the number of people who were treated by the emergency medical teams. Many others relied on their friends and family, or the Good Samaritans to help them gain consciousness and reach home. People not only fainted at the Marina beach but also along the roads and streets, while walking back to the nearby bus stands, railway stations, Metro stations and other transit points.

Mobile jammers worsened the plight of the people as they couldn’t contact ambulance services because of the slow network. “We tried calling for an ambulance but it was out of reach and I had no option but to ask for water from a tea shop and fan my sister. We had to keep her lying down on thefootpath for more than two hours,” rued Jayanthi, another attendee.

Kamaraj Salai, popularly known as Beach Road, is the nerve centre of the city as it houses the DGP office, Ezhilagam housing, the State Disaster Management department, and the head office of the Tamil Nadu Water Supply Board.

DT Next points to the proximity of these government offices and other headquarters to Marina beach, despite which the State machinery failed to meet the arrangements for the air show on Sunday, in which five died due to dehydration, and hundreds more fainted and had to be hospitalised.