Police in the US state of Nevada (western) are investigating a death, Saturday, during the alternative Burning Man festival in the desert, which heavy rains turned into a field of mud.
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Organizers had to close the doors and festival-goers could no longer go to Black Rock City, the name of the site in the Nevada desert, or leave the venue on Saturday for those who were already there.
“A death occurred during this torrential rain,” the local sheriff’s office said in a statement, without providing further information to local media.
Due to heavy rains on Saturday evening, the “playa”, the huge open-air site where the assembly takes place, is now impassable.
The organizers called on the participants in the place to “preserve water, food and fuel and find a warm and safe shelter.”
Rain is expected to return, according to meteorological forecasts, on Sunday, the last day of the festival, while night temperatures will drop from Saturday to Sunday to about 10 degrees, again, according to the organizers.
Most of the scheduled activities have been suspended, including the shooting of the wooden giant fixed in the center of La Playa, which marks the end of the festival and gives it its name.
Last year, the festival faced a severe heat wave accompanied by strong winds, which made the experience really difficult for the “Muharraqin”, the title of festival goers.
Launched in 1986 in San Francisco, Burning Man aims to be an indefinable event, somewhere between a counterculture celebration and a spiritual retreat.
Initially held on a beach in San Francisco, Burning Man became an organized festival with a budget of nearly $45 million (2018 figures) and over 75,000 participants in the latest edition, down from the previous edition in 2019.
It has been held since the 1990s in the Black Rock Desert, a protected area in northwestern Nevada, which organizers are committed to preserving.
