Photo: Ryan Pierse / Getty Images
The call of a referee in a football match between Peru and Argentina causes a riot on 24 May 1964. More than 300 fans died and others 500 people were injured in the violent melee that followed at the National Stadium in Lima, Peru.
The match was qualifying for the Olympic Games of 1964 and the Peruvian fans fiercely cheered their team with few minutes left in a close game. When the referee disallowed an apparent goal from Peru, the stadium went crazy. The resulting panic and security measures taken crowd control caused stampedes in which people were crushed and killed.
Víctor “Kilo” Lobatón achieved the tie, but the Uruguayan referee Ángel Eduardo Pazos invalidated it when considering that he had committed a foul on an Argentine defender.
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The police (wrongly) in their attempt to stop the pitched battle decided to release the dogs first and launch tear gas afterwards.
A large number of people fleeing the conflict zone were trapped with no escape, a massacre that should never have happened.
The scope of this disaster has only been surpassed once. In 1982, 340 people were killed at a match in Moscow when a late goal caused fans who had left the game will suddenly try to return. Meanwhile, the police were forcing people out; those caught in the middle were crushed.
Large-scale football disasters date back to 1946, when 33 fans were crushed to death in Bolton, England, when overcrowded conditions caused a barrier to collapse on fans.
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