A second woman has been confirmed dead after a stampede at a GloRilla concert in New York.
The incident occurred at the Main Street Armory concert venue in the northern New York city of Rochester on Sunday, and initially left three women badly injured.
Rhondesia Belton, of Buffalo, 33, died at a hospital shortly afterwards.
Now Rochester Police has confirmed that a second concertgoer has succumbed to their injuries.
The death of a 35-year-old woman was confirmed late on Monday night.
Her name has not yet been released.
The third woman remains in critical condition in hospital, police said, while seven additional people were treated at area hospitals for injuries that were not life-threatening.
Police were called to the venue following reports of shots fired when the gig, also featuring Memphis rapper Finesse2tymes, came to an end around 11pm.
However, Rochester Police Chief Dave Smith later said reports of gunshots had not been confirmed.
‘We do not have any evidence of gunshots being fired or of anyone being shot or stabbed at the scene,’ Smith said, as police work to figure out what it was that prompted the crowd to surge dangerously towards the exit.
They are investigating several possible causes of the fatal surge, including ‘possibly crowd size, shots fired, pepper spray and other contributing factors’.
GloRilla, 23, tweeted shortly after the concert – before any deaths were confirmed – when she said that she was ‘praying everybody is ok’.
In the early hours of Tuesday, she returned to the social media platform to share her devastation over the news.
‘I am devastated & heartbroken over the tragic deaths that happened after Sunday’s show,’ she wrote.
‘My fans mean the world to me praying for their families & for a speedy recovery of everyone affected [sic].’
Of the incident, Rochester Mayor Malik Evans said: ‘This is a tragedy of epic proportions, and it is something that all of us who love concerts worry about.
‘What I saw last night, in the aftermath of what happened at this concert breaks my heart and is totally unacceptable.’
Both he and Smith asked concertgoers to submit videos and images from the show to better help police piece together what happened.
The venue’s next scheduled show, a Saturday performance by the rapper A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie, has been canceled.
GloRilla, who was born Gloria Hallelujah Woods, was recently nominated for a Grammy for her song FNF (Let’s Go) for best rap performance and also won the award for best breakthrough artist at the 2022 BET Hip Hop Awards.
Fatal crowd surges have been a recurring disaster at concerts and large events around the world, with Travis Scott’s Astroworld event stampede in 2021 causing the death of 10 and leaving many more injured. (Metro)