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The ceremonies of tribute to the victims of the Furiani disaster took place on the afternoon of Thursday May 5 in Corsica. 30 years earlier to the day, the stand of the Bastia stadium collapsed, causing the death of 19 people.
The pain is still just as intense, in front of the Furiani stadium, in Bastia (Haute-Corse). Thursday, May 5, 30 years to the day after the tragedy, the island is still traumatized. Many victims were present for the tribute ceremony. On May 5, 1992, Karine Grimaldi lost her younger sister in the drama, and became a quadriplegic. “A lot of emotion, a lot of sadness, and besides that, a lot of joy also to see so many people”she says.
On May 5, 1992, the Bastia club hosted Olympique de Marseille (OM). A stand had been built specifically so that the stadium could accommodate double its capacity, i.e. 18,000 spectators. Then the drama. “And the stand collapses like a mille-feuille. It did not fall backwards, it crashed into itself”, remembers Jean-Pierre Paoli, speaker of the match. Hundreds of people fell several tens of meters, trapped in a pile of scrap metal. The collapse of the stand killed 19 people and injured more than 2,300. In a trial, two and a half years after the disaster, the builder of the stand was sentenced to two years in prison.