54 Die in Post-Concert Stampede in Belarus

A crowd stampeded in an underground passageway in this capital, leaving 54 people dead and more than 100 injured, state radio in the former Soviet republic said today.

The incident occurred late Sunday after a rock concert and festival marking the two-year anniversary of the Mir radio station. According to police and health officials, the crush occurred in a pedestrian tunnel near the Nemiga metro station not far from the center of the city.

The Itar-Tass news agency said 2,000 people leaving the concert near the city Sports Palace had dashed into the underpass when a heavy rain began.

There initially were sharply divergent reports on the casualty toll. The Interfax news agency initially put the death toll at 40, but the Health Ministry insisted early today that 17 had died. Police put the death toll even lower.

In announcing the higher death toll, the state radio did not say why the earlier estimates were so low or how so many had died.

Itar-Tass said most of the victims were teenagers.

President Alexander G. Lukashenko announced that he would establish a commission to investigate the tragedy.

A correspondent for Poland’s Wyborcza newspaper, who was at the scene, said that police had cordoned off the area an hour after the incident and that dozens of ambulances rushed to the scene. He said he saw eight bodies that had been brought to a nearby hospital.

Interfax said about 10,000 people attended the festival.