(Washington) Police in the US state of Nevada (West) were investigating a death on Saturday during the Burning Man alternative festival in the desert that heavy rains turned into a field of mud.
The organizers had to close the doors and festival-goers could no longer go to Black Rock City, the name of the site located in the Nevada desert, or, for those who were already there, leave it on Saturday.
“One death occurred during this heavy rain event,” the local sheriff’s office said in a statement, without providing further information to local media.
Due to heavy rainfall on Saturday evening, the “playa”, a huge open ground where the rally is being held, has been made impassable.
The organizers invited the participants on the spot to “conserve water, food and fuel and find a warm and safe shelter”.
The rains, according to the weather forecast, should be back on Sunday, the last day of the festival, while temperatures overnight from Saturday to Sunday should drop to around 10 degrees, according to the organizers.
The majority of the planned activities have been suspended, including the burning of the wooden giant installed in the center of “la playa”, which marks the end of the festival and gives it its name.
The festival had faced an intense heat wave last year with strong winds which had already made the experience difficult for the “burners”, nickname of the festival-goers.
Launched in 1986 in San Francisco, Burning Man is intended to be an indefinable event, somewhere between a celebration of counterculture and a spiritual retreat.
Initially organized on a beach in San Francisco, Burning Man has become a structured festival, with a budget of nearly $45 million (2018 figures) and more than 75,000 participants during the last edition, down compared to the previous one in 2019.
It has been organized since the 1990s in the Black Rock Desert, a protected area in northwestern Nevada, which the organizers are committed to preserving.