Police in the US state of Nevada (West) on Saturday investigated a death during the alternative Burning Man festival in the desert, which was turned into a field of mud by heavy rains.
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The organizers had to close the doors and festival-goers could no longer go to Black Rock City, the name of the town located in the Nevada desert, and – for those who were already there – no longer be able to leave it.
“One fatality occurred during this heavy rain episode,” the local sheriff’s office said in a statement, without providing further information to local media.
Due to heavy rain on Saturday evening, the “Playa”, a huge outdoor area where the meeting took place, became impassable.
Organizers urged local participants to “conserve water, food and fuel and find warm and safe shelter.”
According to the weather forecasts, it will rain again on Sunday, the last day of the festival, while the temperatures on the night from Saturday to Sunday are expected to drop again to around 10 degrees, according to the organizers.
Most planned activities have been suspended, including the lighting of the wooden giant in the center of “la playa,” which marks the end of the festival and gives it its name.
Last year the festival experienced a severe heat wave with strong winds, which had already made the experience difficult for the “burners”, as the festival goers are nicknamed.
Launched in San Francisco in 1986, Burning Man aims to be an indefinable event somewhere between counterculture celebration and spiritual retreat.
Originally organized on a beach in San Francisco, Burning Man has grown into a structured festival with a budget of almost $45 million (2018 figures) and more than 75,000 participants in the last edition, which is less than the previous one Edition in 2019.
It has been organized since the 1990s in the Black Rock Desert, a protected area in northwest Nevada that the organizers have set themselves the goal of preserving.