Thousands mourn 21 music fans crushed in tunnel

DUISBURG, Germany - Thousands of grief-stricken mourners watched in tears yesterday as rescue workers lit one white candle for every one of the 21 people crushed to death in a tunnel at the Love Parade techno music festival.

Around 500 people attended the mourning ceremony at Salvator church in the western city of Duisburg - the scene of the tragedy a week ago - and many times more watched the event on screens in the city's football stadium and a dozen other churches. Several TV stations carried the service live, and flags across the country flew at half-staff.

"The Love Parade was danced to death," Nikolaus Schneider, the head of the Rhineland Lutheran church assembly, said in his opening sermon, following somber organ music and prayers for the deceased. "In the middle of a celebration of lust for life, death showed its ugly face to all of us."

The 21 people who died were ages 18 to 38 and included foreigners from Spain, Australia, Italy, Bosnia, China and Holland. An additional 500 people were injured, some 25 of them are still in hospital.

Among those at Salvator church were German Chancellor Angela Merkel, President Christian Wulff, family members of the victims and many relief workers who had helped rescue the injured.

Franz-Josef Overbeck, the Roman Catholic bishop of the neighboring city of Essen, said: "Life can be so oppositional: One moment there is a party, the next moment we are lying helplessly on the ground."

The ceremony was led by the two Roman Catholic and Lutheran Protestant clerics - representing Germany's two main denominations.

In the afternoon, a few hundred mourners marched from the city's train station in the direction of the tunnel. They were holding white balloons but were not allowed to enter the tunnel, which had been blocked by police out of security concerns.

Anger has been building in recent days over the city's and organizers' resistance to take on responsibility for the deaths.