Malang Regency, East Java, a Saturday night match. Arema at home against Persebaya Surabaya, a rivalry people plan their week around. Families in the stands. Kids who'd been brought along because it was a football match and that's what you do with a Saturday night.
Arema lost. Supporters came onto the pitch, police fired tear gas into the stands, and people ran for the exits. The gates were narrow, and some of them were locked. One hundred and thirty-five people died there in 2022, most of them crushed or unable to breathe in the press at a doorway they couldn't get through.
They came to watch a game and go home afterward. I think about the ones waiting at home.
They took the stadium down afterwards and built a memorial on the ground where it stood, so the families would have somewhere to go. One hundred and thirty-five names.
In a crush it isn't usually trampling. Bodies pack tight enough that the chest can't expand, so breathing stops while people are still standing — it can take only a few minutes, and nobody in the press has room to help. Locked gates are what turns a moving crowd into that.