Two dead, hundreds hurt in Philippines Black Nazarene festival

Two people died and hundreds were injured during a religious festival in the Philippines, where barefoot crowds hurled themselves at a statue of Jesus believed to have healing powers, authorities said Sunday.

More than a million people turned out for the festival of the Black Nazarene on Saturday in Manila. Ezra Acayan / Reuters

MANILA // Two people died and hundreds were injured during a religious festival in the Philippines, where barefoot crowds hurled themselves at a statue of Jesus believed to have healing powers, authorities said on Sunday.

More than a million people turned out for the festival of the Black Nazarene on Saturday, one of the world’s largest religious gatherings, to see the life-size statue wheeled through the streets of Manila.

Risking their lives, shoeless men and women chanting “Viva!” ran over heads and shoulders to touch the icon as it made its way through the Philippine capital.

Father Douglas Badong, rector of the Manila church where the statue is based, said one of the street vendors at the festival suffered a fatal heart attack.

“Because of the crowd, the heat, his body couldn’t take it,” he said.

Another man, 27, who was reportedly suffering from a liver ailment, passed out after helping to drag the statue’s float and could not be revived, Father Badong said.

Police said at its height, about 1.5 million people took part in the seven-kilometre parade, which runs to the icon’s home inside the Quiapo church.

Many believe the Black Nazarene has miraculous powers and sick people will often resort to desperate measures to try to touch it.

The wooden statue of Christ, crowned with thorns and bearing a cross, is believed to have been brought from Mexico to Manila on a galleon in 1606 by Spanish missionaries. The ship that carried it caught fire, but the charred statue survived. Some believe the statue’s survival from fires and earthquakes through the centuries and intense bombings during World War II is a testament to its mystical powers.

The spectacle reflects the Philippines’ unique brand of Catholicism, which includes folk superstitions, in Asia’s largest Catholic nation.

Philippine Red Cross secretary-general Gwendolyn Pang said her agency, which had a field hospital at the site, treated almost 1,600 people who were injured during the festivities.

Some 55 of them were “major cases”, such as fractures caused by the crush of people or strokes caused by stress, more than double the number last year.

Many of them were already ill, she said, adding: “They probably thought if they take part in the procession, they would get better.”

Manila’s civil defence chief Johnny Yu said the procession was “a successful event” despite the deaths and injuries, some of which he said was down to sick people taking part.

* Agence France-Presse and Associated Press