"As climate change supercharges extreme weather around the world, many concert venues, organizers and fans are ill-prepared for rising risks."
"Just before Ana Clara Benevides lost consciousness, she likely found it hard to breathe.
Packed with 60,000 people in Rio de Janeiro’s Nilton Santos Stadium for a Nov. 17 Taylor Swift concert — amidst a heat wave with a “real feel” of 138F (59C) — the 23-year-old would have been unbearably thirsty, her heart beating fast, her skin hot. Benevides fainted as Swift sang “Cruel Summer,” the second song of the set. Four hours later, she would be dead from heat exhaustion.
Benevides’s death, during a record hot austral spring that researchers later attributed to climate change, made international news as a tragic anomaly. Nilton Santos Stadium, Taylor Swift’s team, and T4F Entretenimento SA — which promoted the event — did not respond to requests for comment.
But Swift’s show came on the heels of other instances of extreme weather harming people at outdoor concerts. During a heat wave last July, 17 people were hospitalized for heat-related illnesses — including two cardiac arrests — at an Ed Sheeran show in Pittsburgh. A month earlier, 100 people were injured by hail at a Louis Tomlinson concert in Colorado’s Red Rocks Amphitheater."
Kendra Pierre-Louis reports for Bloomberg Green June 14, 2024.
SEE ALSO:
"At Least 14 Pilgrims Die During Hajj Pilgrimage Amid Soaring Temperatures" (Guardian)
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