Pukkelpop festival

Oh. My. God.

I'm not really one to use those words. Especially not when each of them form a sentence on their own, but really, even after about 29 hours, I'm still pretty much in shock.

Yesterday, Pukkelpop festival, the last big festival of the season over here in Belgium, started off with some great weather. Usually the weather at Pukkelpop is really bad, but yesterday, it was great.

Until about 6.15pm. A storm passed the festival site, turning it into some apocalyptic site instead. Two or three stages collapsed because of the amounts of rain and, most importantly, the heavy winds. Several trees came down on the site, tent poles came down, screens from the sides of the stages came down, ... In other words, 15 minutes was all it took to turn a place to party into a what looked like a war zone. According to official reports, three people had passed away, 11 had severe injuries and there were about 60 people with minor injuries.

I was shaken up about all of that, but mostly, I was thinking: "That could have been me." I had a ticket to go there today. If that storm took place 24 hours later, I would have been there. Even though the organizer said the festival would continue today (albeit not with all the bands on the line up playing, since some stages had been destroyed), I decided not to go anymore. Out of respect for the victims and because I knew I wouldn't be able to have fun at a place where people had died just 24 hours prior.

When I woke up this morning (because my friend, who I was going to the festival with, called me and woke me up), I heard that the entire festival had been closed down. That was an understandable decision if you ask me. My friend also told me that by then, two more people had passed away and 6 were still in a critical condition.

Throughout the day, I've heard more reports about it and I really wish I didn't. All of them make me feel even worse. I haven't cried this much in only one day for a long time, but now I'm so shaken up about the entire thing, it seems like I can't stop the emotions from coming out in the form of tears. I don't even want to think about how I would feel if I'd actually been there yesterday. I don't want to know what it must be like for the people who were there.

I wish the families of all the victims and the surviving victims, both physically and emotionally injured, a lot of strength. My thoughts really go out to them.