Taylor Swift postponed an Eras Tour concert in Rio de Janeiro Saturday after a 23-year-old fan died throughout her Friday night time present, in line with a message posted on the singer’s Instagram.
“I’m writing this from my dressing room in the stadium. The decision has been made to postpone tonight’s show due to the extreme temperatures in Rio,” the singer stated in a handwritten word on Instagram. “The safety and well being of my fans, fellow performers, and crew has to and always will come first.”
The reason for dying for Ana Clara Benevides Machado, the younger lady who sought medical consideration at Nilton Santos Olympic Stadium throughout Friday’s present, has not but been introduced. The workplace of Rio’s public prosecutor opened a prison investigation and stated Benevides’ physique was being examined.
Benevides’ dying shook many individuals in Brazil. She had taken her first flight ever to journey from the nation’s center-west area to Rio to see her favourite musician. She additionally created a WhatsApp group to maintain her household up to date, sending photographs and movies each step of the way in which, members of the family instructed on-line information website G1.
Followers and politicians reacted to her dying with outrage, speculating it was linked to excessive warmth.
Concertgoers complained they weren’t allowed to take water into the stadium regardless of the stifling climate. As temperatures continued to rise Saturday and with two extra reveals to go on the time, federal authorities introduced that free water would now be made accessible at live shows and different giant occasions.
One among Benevides’ pals, who additionally went to the live performance, instructed native shops that they had each been given water whereas ready to enter the stadium.
In a earlier assertion shared on her social media Saturday morning, Swift stated she had a “shattered heart.”
“There’s very little information I have other than the fact that she was so incredibly beautiful and far too young,” the singer wrote of the younger lady.
The present’s organizer, Time4Fun, stated on Instagram that paramedics attended to Benevides after she reported feeling unwell. She was taken to a first-aid middle after which to a hospital, the place she died an hour later, the assertion from the Brazilian reside leisure firm stated.
Followers who attended the Friday present stated they weren’t allowed to deliver water bottles into the stadium though Rio and most of Brazil have had record-breaking temperatures this week amid a dangerous and lasting heat wave. The daytime excessive in Rio on Friday was 39.1 levels Celsius (102.4 levels Fahrenheit), but it surely felt a lot hotter.
Obvious temperature — a mixture of temperature and humidity — hit 59 C (138 F) Friday morning in Rio, the best index ever recorded there.
Elizabeth Morin, 26, who just lately moved to Rio from Los Angeles, described “sauna-like” situations contained in the stadium.
“It was extremely hot. My hair got so wet from sweat as soon as I came in,” she stated. “There was a point at which I had to check my breathing to make sure I wasn’t going to pass out.”
Morin stated she drank loads of water however noticed “a good amount of people looking distressed” and others “yelling for water.” She stated she was in a position to get water from the sidelines of the world she was standing in, however that water was rather a lot more durable to entry from different components of the stadium, “especially if you were concerned about losing your specific position.”
Through the present, Swift paused her efficiency and requested from the stage for water to be delivered to a gaggle of people that had efficiently caught the singer’s consideration, in line with Morin.
“They were holding up their phones saying ‘We need water,’” she recalled.
Two different concertgoers interviewed by The Related Press stated they witnessed folks feeling unwell from the warmth throughout the present.
On her option to Rio, Benevides despatched a video to members of the family that was broadcast by TV channel Globo Information, telling them: “Mom, look at the plane, it’s moving. Mom, I’m on the plane. My God in heaven! I’m happy!”
Then earlier than the live performance, she posted a video of herself on Instagram sporting a Taylor Swift T-shirt and friendship bracelets, looking for shade beneath an umbrella whereas ready in line to enter the stadium.
Like her, hundreds of followers waited hours within the solar earlier than being allowed inside.
She instructed her followers whereas fanning her face that she’d arrived at 11 a.m. — the present started round 7:30 p.m. — and was “still in the mess.”
Benevides’ pal, Daniele Menin, who attended the live performance along with her, instructed on-line information website G1 that her pal handed out in the beginning of the live performance, as Swift carried out her second track, “Cruel Summer.”
“We always said that when (Taylor Swift) came to Brazil we would find a way to go. The ticket was very expensive, but we still found a way,” Menin instructed G1.
Justice Minister Flávio Dino stated on X, previously often called Twitter, that going ahead in Brazil, “water bottles for personal use, in suitable material, will be allowed” at live shows and festivals and that present producers should present free and simply accessible ingesting water.
Rio de Janeiro Mayor Eduardo Paes wrote on X that the “loss of a young woman’s life … is unacceptable” and demanded extra brigades and ambulances at future reveals.
Nonetheless, the live performance was postponed.
“We are on the train. And everyone is so disappointed,” stated Hely Olivares, a 41 year-old Venezuelan who had traveled from Panama to see the artist.
Earlier than suspending the live performance, Swift wrote on Instagram that she wouldn’t tackle the dying from stage “because I feel overwhelmed by grief when I even try to talk about it.”
“I want to say now I feel this loss deeply and my broken heart goes out to her family and friends,” she stated.
