A strong gust of wind toppled the stage at a campaign rally on Wednesday evening in the northern Mexican state of Nuevo Leon, killing at least nine people \u2013 including a child \u2013 and injuring 63, the state\u2019s governor said. The collapse occurred during an event attended by presidential long-shot candidate Jorge \u00c1lvarez M\u00e1ynez, who ran to escape. Videos of the collapse on social media showed people screaming, running away and climbing out from under metal polls.<\/p>\n
The victims \u201cwill not be alone in this tragedy\u201d, M\u00e1ynez told reporters on Wednesday night, adding that he had suspended upcoming campaign events. Afterwards, soldiers, police and other officials roamed the grounds of the park where the event took place while many nearby sat stunned and haunted by the tragedy. Mexican President Andr\u00e9s Manuel L\u00f3pez Obrador said he \u201csends a hug to family members, friends of the victims and political supporters.\u201d<\/p>\n
Condolences poured in from across Mexico, including by other presidential candidates. In a video message, Nuevo Leon Gov. Samuel Garcia, a leading member of M\u00e1ynez\u2019s Citizens Movement party, asked residents to shelter in their houses for the next two hours. He provided the death toll of at least five and dozens injured. M\u00e1ynez wrote in his social media accounts that he went to a hospital after the accident in the wealthy suburb of San Pedro Garza Garcia, near the city of Monterrey. He said he was in good condition.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe only important thing at this point is to care for the victims of the accident,\u201d he wrote. Miguel Trevi\u00f1o, the mayor of San Pedro Garza Garcia, wrote in his social media accounts, \u201cMy prayers are with the victims.\u201d Campaign events are being held this week and next in anticipation of the June 2 presidential, state and municipal elections. Videos of the accident showed M\u00e1ynez waving his arm as the crowd chanted his name.<\/p>\n
But then he looked up to see a giant screen and metal structure toppling toward him. He ran rapidly toward the back of the stage to avoid the falling structure, which appeared to consist of relatively light framework pieces as well as what appeared to be a screen with the party\u2019s logo and theater-style lights. M\u00e1ynez has been running third in polls in the presidential race, trailing both front-runner Claudia Sheinbaum of the ruling Morena Party and opposition coalition candidate X\u00f3chitl G\u00e1lvez.<\/p>\n
Both sent their condolences. \u201cMy condolences and prayers with the families of the dead, and my wishes for a speedy recovery to all those injured,\u201d wrote G\u00e1lvez in a social media post. The campaign has so far been plagued by the killings of about two dozen candidates for local offices. But it has not been marred by campaign accidents.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A strong gust of wind toppled the stage at a campaign rally on Wednesday evening in the northern Mexican state\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":45171,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[186],"tags":[474,1634,3665,587,14326,1627,14325],"class_list":["post-45170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","tag-campaign","tag-deaths","tag-injuries","tag-mexico","tag-nuevo-leon","tag-presidential-elections","tag-stage-collapse"],"reading_time":"3 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45170\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}