crowd crush Crowd collapses and crowd crushes are catastrophic incidents that can occur when a body of people becomes dangerously overcrowded. When numbers are up to about five people per square meter, the environment may feel cramped but manageable; when nu ...

occurred on 17 February 1974 when fans were crushed before the kick-off of a

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

friendly match An exhibition game (also known as a friendly, scrimmage, demonstration, training match, pre-season game, warmup match, or preparation match, depending at least in part on the sport) is a sport, sporting event whose prize money and impact on th ...

at the Zamalek Stadium in

Cairo Cairo ( ; , ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Egypt and the Cairo Governorate, being home to more than 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, L ...

between

Zamalek Zamalek ( , ''al zamalek'') is a ''qism'' (ward) within the West District (''hayy gharb'') in the Western Area of Cairo, Egypt. It is an affluent district on a man-made island which is geologically a part of the west bank of the Nile River, wit ...

of Egypt and

Dukla Prague Dukla Prague () was a Czech football club from the city of Prague. Established in 1948 as ATK Praha, the club won a total of 11 Czechoslovak league titles and eight Czechoslovak Cups, and in the 1966–67 season, reached the semi-finals of the ...

Czechoslovakia Czechoslovakia ( ; Czech language, Czech and , ''Česko-Slovensko'') was a landlocked country in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland beca ...

. The total death toll is reported variously as 48, 49, or 50; 50 more were injured during this event. Following a change of venue for the match, many supporters thought they would not be able to enter the newly chosen stadium (because the previously intended venue, Nasser Stadium, was much larger). There was a stampede, the walls crumbled, and many people were left dead. According to reports, up to 80,000 people tried to access the stadium, despite the capacity at the time being just 40,000.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Zamalek Disaster 1974 disasters in Egypt 1974 in African football 1974 in Egypt 1973–74 in Czechoslovak football 1970s in Cairo Dukla Prague February 1974 in Africa History of Cairo Human stampedes in Africa Man-made disasters in Egypt Crowd collapses and crushes in stadiums Zamalek SC Crowd collapses and crushes in Africa