THOUSANDS OF FESTIVAL-GOERS TRAPPED

BY THE RAIN IN THE NEVADA DESERT

Police in the US state of Nevada (West) were investigating a death on Saturday during the alternative Burning Man festival in the desert that heavy rains transformed into a field of mud.

Due to the heavy downpours, "la playa", a huge esplanade characteristic of the event, was made impassable. If the rains stopped during the day, they should return on Sunday, the last day of the festival, while the temperatures in the night from Saturday to Sunday should drop to around 10 degrees, again according to the organizers.

According to a White House official, President Joe Biden was even informed of the situation on Sunday.

"The gates and airport of Black Rock City (the name of the site, Editor's note) remain closed, any entry or exit is delayed until further notice", repeats at regular intervals since Saturday the X account (ex-Twitter) of the Burning Man.

“Do not travel to Black Rock City! Access to the city is closed for the duration of the event,” continued festival officials. This Saturday, the local Reno Gazette Journal reported that nearly 73,000 people were retained on site. The organizers also invited participants already on site to “conserve water, food and fuel and find warm and safe shelter”.

Burning Man not burned

Despite the difficulty of traveling, thousands of participants seek to flee the festival. Some chose to leave the scene by walking through eight kilometers of mud to reach the nearest paved road, from where several shuttles were deployed to transport festival-goers to Reno .

However, the festival is not officially over. The majority of planned activities have been suspended, including the lighting of the wooden giant installed in the center of “la playa”, which marks the end of the festival and gives it its name. It was postponed to this Monday, at 9 p.m.

Launched in 1986 in San Francisco, Burning Man aims to be an indefinable event, somewhere between a celebration of counterculture and a spiritual retreat. Initially organized on a beach in San Francisco, Burning Man has become a structured festival, with a budget of nearly $45 million (2018 figures) and more than 75,000 participants during the last edition.

It has been organized since the 1990s in the Black Rock Desert, a protected area in northwest Nevada, which the organizers are committed to preserving.

The festival faced an intense heat wave last year with strong winds which had already made the experience difficult for the "burners", as festival-goers are known.