125 People dead in Indonesia after Football Match

Jakarta: The death toll from a charge at a football stadium in Indonesia’s East Java province has been revised down to 125.

East Java Deputy governor Emil Dardak said the data cross-checked from 10 hospitals in the area showed there were 125 fatalities. Earlier, officials had put the figure as high as 174 in one of the world’s worst stadium disasters.

When upset supporters of the losing home team invaded the pitch in Malang in the province of East Java late on Saturday, officers fired tear gas in an attempt to control the situation, triggering the stampede and cases of suffocation, East Java police chief Nico Afinta told reporters.

“It had gotten anarchic. They started attacking officers, they damaged cars,” Nico said, adding that the crash occurred when fans fled for an exit gate.

Indonesia’s human rights commission planned to examine security on the ground, including the use of tear gas, its commissioner told Reuters.

The country’s chief security minister, Mahfud MD, said in an Instagram post that the stadium had been filled beyond its capacity. He said 42,000 tickets had been issued for a stadium that is only supposed to hold 38,000 people.

The Indonesian top league BRI Liga 1 has suspended games for a week and an investigation had been launched, the Football Association of Indonesia said.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo ordered authorities on Sunday to thoroughly re-evaluate security at football matches.

He also told the country’s football association (PSSI) to stop Liga 1 matches until the investigation had been concluded, and called for this to be the “last football tragedy in the nation.”