In a statement posted on Instagram, Swift said Benevides’ death left her with a “shattered heart.”
Before the show Friday, fans lined up for hours outside the Nilton Santos Olympic Stadium where temperatures soared to 41 degrees Celsius, with a heat index of nearly 59 C. Inside the stadium, concertgoers complained of unbearable heat and some said they had difficulty getting access to water.
“I didn’t imagine that my dream could turn into a nightmare,” said fan Kléssia Menezes, who told R7 TV that she had gotten stuck with hundreds of other people on one of the ramps to a VIP area Saturday as security officers blocked the entrance.
Once security let them through, she said, people started running and she fell on a hot metallic floor that burned her leg and back.
“They took me to the doctor … and I saw that I wasn’t the only person to have fallen in this chaos,” she said. “Many people fell and burned themselves.”
Ultimately, that night’s show was postponed after tens of thousands of fans had spent hours lining up in the heat. Swift announced on Instagram that it was necessary “due to the extreme temperatures in Rio.”
The postponement was followed by chaos outside the stadium. Under a light rain, a mass of concertgoers left the area, which is close to one of Rio’s working-class neighbourhoods, known as favelas.
Videos shared on social media showed groups of pickpockets robbing fans of their belongings, scenes not so unusual to Rio residents, but far from the postcards many tourists have seen of the “cidade maravilhosa.”
Saturday’s show was postponed to Monday night, but many who had travelled from other regions of Brazil and outside the country had already made plans to leave earlier.
“We’re not going to be able to make it,” said Hely Olivares, a 41-year-old Venezuelan who had traveled from Panama. “A lot of people have wasted their journey.”
Source: CNA
