Bharti Shahani, a 22-year-old Indian-American university student who was a part of the Astroworld Festival tragedy that occurred on Friday, 5 November, has been declared to be brain dead, The Indian Express reported.
The Texas A&M University student is currently on a ventilator based now what her family told ABC 13 Houston.
At least eight people died during a concert of American rapper Travis Scott, who is known for demanding chaotic energy from his audience during performances.
Bharti attend the concert with her sister Namrata and and her cousin Mohit but were separated from one another once the stampede like situation arose.
The latter two lost their cell phones and couldn’t call Bharti and by the time they saw her next, she was in the Emergency Room.
The catastrophe began when a huge crowd of 50,000 ran towards the stage and even though the singer said in a statement that he is ‘absolutely devastated’ by what happened, he is being accused of not doing enough to stop the concert when he clearly knew that something was wrong.
For instance, a twitter user has attached a video to his statement and claimed that Scott was being yelled at to stop the show because somebody had collapsed, but to no avail.
Houston's mayor, Sylvester Turner, has said it can't be determined yet whether it was the lack of security that led to the disaster.
“We had more security over there than we had at the World Series games,” as quoted by the New York Times.
Lawsuits have begun to roll in as Scott and surprise performer Drake have been sued with allegations that they incited the crowd, and that the company responsible for the production of the concert, Live Nation, failed to ensure adequate safety, BBC reported.
(With inputs from BBC, New York Times, ABC 13 Houston, and the Indian Express)
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