9 Dead, Including Child, and 121 Injured After Stage Collapses at Election Rally in Mexico

Presidential candidate Jorge Álvarez Máynez was hosting a rally in the northeastern Mexico state of Nuevo Leon when severe winds hit the area

Nine people are dead and more than 100 people were injured at a political rally in Mexico after a stage collapsed due to high winds, authorities said.

Nuevo Leon state Gov. Samuel Garcia said in a statement Thursday, May 23, that 121 people had been injured in the collapse in northeastern city of San Pedro Garza García, according to the Associated Press.

The political rally was being held by presidential candidate Jorge Álvarez Máynez on Wednesday, May 22, the outlet reported. Máynez, a member of the Citizens Movement party, escaped the collapse and later told reporters that the victims "will not be alone in this tragedy," AP reported.

Videos of the incident that circulated on social media Wednesday night show people in the crowd screaming and running for cover as metal poles and a large screen fell from the stage.

In a video posted to X (formerly Twitter), Garcia said that 94 people injured in the collapse had been released from various hospitals and clinics in the area, and that 27 people are still hospitalized. He added that three victims had undergone surgery and were in critical condition, AP added. The outlet also added that local health authorities noted that many of the injuries involved skull fractures.

The area was surrounded by medical personnel and heavily armed police and military in the aftermath, the outlet reported. Many of the rally's attendees who were not injured sat around afterward for hours, stunned by the night's events.

Álvarez Máynez said Civil Defense personnel had checked the “structure of the set” before the event and that the severe weather came as a surprise, according to CNN.

"The weather conditions were very atypical: the rain didn’t last for even five minutes … it wasn’t even a storm, it was truly atypical what happened," he said.

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Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador also commented on the incident, noting that most of the injured people were women, CNN reported.

Obrador also said that the Citizens Movement party, viewed as allies of his Morena party, should not be blamed before investigations begin.

"We know that they are not to blame," the president said Thursday, per CNN.

Many political analysts believe Álvarez Máynez has a very small chance of winning the presidential race, the outlet added. Former Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum and former Senator Xochitl Gálvez are the two leading candidates, making it likely that Mexico is going to have its first female president in June.

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Álvarez Máynez has suspended several of his upcoming campaign events, AP added.

"We have to have solidarity, there is nothing that can repair an accident, a damage of this nature, and [people] will not be alone in this tragedy and through the consequences that this tragedy will have in their lives," Álvarez Máynez told CNN, noting that he would stay in the state to visit victims and their families.

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