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Have been past forty years of the tragedy that struck the heart of the Colombia taurine. More than four hundred dead and two thousand wounded was the balance of that fatal event in the plaza de toros Hegémones Met , of Sincelejo. It happened during the traditional corralejas when, at the start of the rain, the audience ran for shelter in the grandstands of wooden , that they gave way from the excessive weight. In addition, before the collapse, twenty fans were injured while “toreaban” forty bulls that jumped into the arena of colombia.

According to a teletype from Efe published in the pages of ABC’s January 22, 1980 , the organizers of the festivities had built 32 boxes or stands, with a capacity of more than 40,000 people. The plaza, built with wooden boards, had a excess public “of a 50 by 100”.

Regarding the causes of the tragedy , he said: “If there has to be a direct cause, this is none other than the weak fabric of the grandstands. The indirect source would have the time, like so many other times excuse. In effect, when the party was in its heyday, with dozens of people who were trying to deal to their air, and by every conceivable means to about forty copies of the race cebu , the bulls, half-caste, and very heavy, it started to rain”.

Gorings and wood nailed

What happened then? Those that occupied the areas with no roof, they ran to take shelter in the covered areas, “sobrecargándose weight” . And continues the chronicle: “As, in addition, it had rained in the morning, the tables no longer endured most and gave way, dragging numerous grandstands, with its motley mass of human”. From then on, it vivieon moments terrifying: “The arena is turned into a hell, with heartrending cries of people trapped between the timbers and the cries of helplessness of those who were trampled by a flood of humanity fleeing terrified not only of the tragedy, but also of the forty horn-flanked , frightened by the clamour, ran from one side to the other corneando right and left” . A witness said that he saw “bodies of children, women and men dying after having been trampled by the fleeing empavorecidos. Some of them had even nailed to wooden stakes in the body, from the splinters that were converted to the bleachers”.

On the teletype of the 21st day of January, four decades ago, there was talk of a provisional balance of three hundred dead and a thousand injured, that would rise to 400 deaths and two thousand injured. In the chronic stage was a real “medieval battle”.