Five festival goers killed as storms hit Pukkelpop festival

At least five people have been killed and 40 injured as severe storms hit Belgium's Pukkelpop festival yesterday, the BBC reports.

Reports say the festival's Chateau Stage collapsed, while the Shelter Stage was damaged by trees amid high winds and very heavy rain (which can be seen in the fan-filmed video above).

At around 6pm last night Illinois band Smith Westerns, who were about to go on stage at the festival, tweeted "Stage collapsed max almost got crushed by the tress, I hope pukkelpop has insurance bc all our shit is broke." (The band later added, "Apologize to anyone who mistook tweet. Wrote direclty after running off stage. Just found out the extent of damage. All of prays go out to those hurt".)

Around 60,000 people were due to attend this year's festival, which is one of the largest in Europe. Foo Fighters were due to headline the festival last night, while Eminem was set to headline tonight. The remainder of the festival has now been cancelled. Our thoughts go out to all those affected.

Si Truss

I'm Editor-in-Chief of Music Technology, working with Future Music, Computer Music, Electronic Musician and MusicRadar. I've been messing around with music tech in various forms for over two decades. I've also spent the last 10 years forgetting how to play guitar. Find me in the chillout room at raves complaining that it's past my bedtime.