A 23-year-old girl died in Rio de Janeiro on Friday evening during Taylor Swift’s first concert in the city, on a day of extreme heat where the temperature reached almost 40 degrees, almost 60 degrees. The fan, Ana Clara Benevides, a psychology student, began to feel unwell at the start of the concert. She fainted and was treated on site in a hospital ward, where unsuccessful attempts were made to resuscitate her for 40 minutes. She was then taken by ambulance to a hospital, where she died of cardiac arrest. A few hours before the start of the second of three planned concerts in the city, he decided to cancel it. “I am writing to you from my dressing room at the stadium. “The decision was made to postpone tonight’s show due to the extreme temperatures in Rio,” Swift wrote on her Instagram account.
There were also some restrictions on bottled water entry into the stadium during Friday’s concert. The audience in the stands was able to purchase water relatively easily despite the high prices, but the vendors were unable to move around the track due to the crowds. The singer herself complained about the heat and stopped the concert so that her team could hand out water to the fans in the front rows.
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More than 60,000 people packed the Nilton Santos Olympic Stadium, which became a pressure cooker due to the intense heat. Thousands of fans had spent the whole day in the sun, queuing up to secure a good spot. The concert started at night, but the temperatures didn’t let up. According to the friend who accompanied her, Daniele Menin, the university student fainted during the second song, “Cruel Summer” (Cruel Summer, in Spanish). Friends linked her death to the heat, but there is currently no official information about the condition that caused the student’s death.
The welcome message for Taylor Swift in Brazil at the Christ the Redeemer.Bruna Prado (AP)
These days, Brazil is experiencing a heat wave that has caused a state of emergency in more than 1,400 cities, exacerbated by the effects of El Niño and global warming. In Rio, the actual feeling of warmth reaches peaks of 58 degrees due to the high humidity. During Swift’s concert, which lasted three and a half hours, hundreds of people had to be treated for dehydration and fainting. The organization has not yet provided an overview of medical care. According to the local press, there were almost 1,000.
Shortly after the show, the singer reported the death of her follower via her social networks: “I can’t believe I’m writing these words, but with a broken heart I say that we lost a fan tonight.” The American gave Admitted that she was “devastated” and warned that she would not speak about the issue at the upcoming concerts she has in store for Brazil. “Every time I try to talk about it, the pain overwhelms me. I want to say that I feel this loss deeply and my heartbreak goes out to his family and friends. “That was the last thing I would have thought when we decided to bring this tour to Brazil.”
The fan’s death triggered a wave of criticism against the organizing company T4F, which in a short statement regretted the death but did not announce any preventive measures for the upcoming concerts. The government, through Justice Minister Flávio Dino, promised to investigate the difficulties in accessing water and to publish emergency regulations to ensure that the public can stay hydrated during these types of shows. “It is unacceptable that people are suffering, fainting and even dying because they do not have access to water,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter. Rio Mayor Eduardo Paes said he would hold the production accountable and promised an increase in brigade members and ambulances at the next concerts, which are also scheduled for high temperatures.
The singer has two more concerts before her The Eras tour in Rio on Saturday and Sunday. After a short break, he will bring his show to São Paulo on November 24th and 26th. All events have long since sold out. His first appearance in Brazil after an eleven-year absence sparked the frenzy of his supporters, who even mobilized to project a welcome message to Brazil on the statue of Christ the Redeemer in his honor. The priest in charge of the memorial agreed, in exchange for fans managing to collect water and food for those most in need. They completed the challenge with flying colors and Swift said on stage that it was the nicest thing anyone had ever done for her.
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