A circus visitor told about the moment of the collapse of the grandstand in the Samara region

Circus visitors in the Samara region were sitting on practically unfastened benches. Anastasia, a visitor to the performance, told Izvestia about this on Friday, March 7.

"People's stands started to fall apart, roughly speaking. Literally five minutes later, people began to descend from there. Someone was walking on the sides, and someone decided to go through the middle closer to the exit, and the podium collapsed along with people and children...> Then the panic started, everyone started coming out," Anastasia said.

She added that the organizers rushed to help the victims only after they had removed all the decorations.

A podium with spectators collapsed in a traveling circus in the Samara city of Neftegorsk earlier that day. According to the Izvestia source, the height of the podium was no more than 3 m, and there were 20 people on it. According to the Ministry of Emergency Situations, seven people were injured in the collapse.

A criminal case has been opened into the incident under Article 238 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation ("Provision of services that do not meet the requirements for the safety of life and health of consumers").