German chancellor Angela Merkel promised an “intense” investigation into the deaths of 19 people at a techno music festival as witnesses put the blame on police and security staff.

A stampede inside a tunnel crowded with techno music fans left 15 people dead and dozens injured at the famed Love Parade festival in western Germany today.

Organisers of Berlin’s Love Parade said today that financial problems had forced them to cancel the techno music festival for the second straight year.