The Burning Man festival in Nevada (USA) ended in the worst way: there was torrential rain that left nearly 72,000 people trapped in the quagmire and, according to various media, such as SkyNews, one dead.
A curious fact is that among the tens of thousands of people affected was a personality from the country: the comedian Chris Rock, who, like a few, managed to escape in time.
In a video circulating online, Rock can be seen in the back of a truck that “rescued” him from the Nevada desert. The artist shared the escape with the American DJ Diplo and a group of attendees who suffered the same consequences as them.
"Just walked 5 miles in mud to get out of Burning Man with Chris Rock and a fan picked us up," Diplo tweeted alongside the video.
Burning Man takes place each year on a dry lake in the Nevada desert, where a "temporary city" is built, accessible via a two-lane highway. There people can participate in a series of artistic and community activities.
According to the organizers, the festival is guided by a series of principles including "civil responsibility", "radical expression" or "leave no trace", and the use of money is not allowed (although tickets to attend cost hundreds of dollars).
The 72,000 Burning Man festival attendees who are trapped in the desert will be able to leave the venue starting this Monday, festival organizers confirmed in their latest update published on the event's website.
"The exodus is scheduled to officially start around noon today (1900 GMT), Monday, September 4," they reported.
Despite the fact that the driveway to Black Rock City, the name of the temporary city that is built each year to host the festival, is still "a little muddy and there is still too much standing water", it is drying and vehicles will be able to leave starting this afternoon.
Even so, organizers asked attendees to delay their departure until Tuesday, to alleviate "a large amount of congestion throughout the day today."
Since last Friday, hundreds of vehicles, many of them heavy caravans, were stuck in the desert, after the torrential rains that occurred between Friday night and Saturday collapsed the site.
Roads in and out of Black Rock City were closed on Saturday and organizers asked attendees to take cover and ration their food and water as it was virtually impossible for vehicles to circulate. This is observed in images published by the media, taken from the air by a drone, in which hundreds of stranded vehicles appear, surrounded by mud.
In just 24 hours, rain equivalent to two or three months was recorded in the area.
Despite the fact that the organizers of the event asked the attendees to take refuge and not try to leave the area on their own, hundreds of them decided to escape by walking through the desert.
According to the Pershing County Sheriff's Office, some attendees walked to a main road to wait for buses sent out by festival organizers Saturday night.
