At least nine people died in a stampede at a soccer stadium in El Salvador: NPR

An injured fan was carried to the field at the Cuscatlan stadium in San Salvador, El Salvador, Saturday, May 20, 2023. At least nine people were killed and dozens more injured when fans rushed through one access gates during a quarter-final of the Salvadoran league. football match between Alianza and FAS.

Milton Flores/AP

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Milton Flores/AP

An injured fan was carried to the field at the Cuscatlan stadium in San Salvador, El Salvador, Saturday, May 20, 2023. At least nine people were killed and dozens more injured when fans rushed through one access gates during a quarter-final of the Salvadoran league. football match between Alianza and FAS.

Milton Flores/AP

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador – At least nine people were killed and dozens more injured when football fans rushed through one of the access gates during a league quarter-final game Salvadoran on Saturday.

The National Civil Police said in a preliminary report via Twitter that nine deaths were confirmed during the match between the Alianza and FAS clubs at the Monumental stadium in Cuscatlan, around 41 kilometers northeast of the capital.

At least two of the injured taken to hospitals were in critical condition, police said.

Carlos Fuentes, spokesman for the rescue group Rescue Commandos, also confirmed the deaths.

“We can confirm nine deaths – seven men and two women – and we have treated more than 500 people, and more than 100 have been taken to hospitals, some of them serious,” Fuentes said.

Play was suspended around 16 minutes into the match when frantically waving fans in the stands began to draw the attention of those on the pitch and carry the injured out of a tunnel and onto the pitch.

Local television broadcast live footage of the aftermath of the stampede by Alianza fans. Dozens of people arrived on the ground where they received medical treatment. Fans who escaped the crush stood on the field, furiously waving shirts, trying to survey the people lying on the grass who were barely moving.

Pedro Hernández, president of El Salvador’s first football division, said preliminary information he had was that the stampede happened because fans managed to break through a gate in the stadium.

“It was an avalanche of fans who flooded the gate. Some were still under the metal in the tunnel. Others managed to get into the stands and then onto the pitch and were suffocated,” said a volunteer not identified from the Rescue Commandos first aid group. told reporters.

National Civil Police commissioner Mauricio Arriza Chicas, at the scene of the tragedy, said there would be a criminal investigation in conjunction with the Attorney General’s office.

“We will investigate from ticket sales, entrances to the stadium, but especially from the southern zone”, where, he specified, the portal was pushed.

The Salvadoran Football Federation said in a statement that it regretted what had happened and expressed its support for the families of the victims.